The core of dementia diagnosis relies on a clinical interview with the patient and an observer, supplemented by cognitive testing and brain imaging.

“the real crux of um diagnosis is a good clinical interview with the patient and with an observer so usually it's a spouse or an adult child or a loved one who has observed changes over time in interviewing them separately that's key separately because otherwise the most important information is left out you know because they don't want to hurt the loved ones feelings or whatever so um getting a good clinical interview from the patient informant doing some cognitive testing to look for patterns that support one diagnosis over another and then doing some brain imaging to look for certain things like strokes or shrinking in certain parts of the brain”