Young Onset Dementia

You have been referred to YOD following concerns about your memory and/or other thinking skills. Our service will work with you to explore whether there is any evidence to suggest that these changes are being caused by a dementia illness.

Clinics are run in locally based venues. We will try to book you into the clinic closest to your home address where possible, however some medical appointments take place at specific locations or hospital sites. Due to the high waiting times in our service, we may offer you the next available appointment rather than the one that is closest to where you live. You can always call to let us know if this is not convenient for you.

Your first appointment will take between 60 and 90 minutes. We always encourage people to be accompanied by a family member or friend if possible. At this appointment we will talk more about what our service can offer and whether you think this would be useful for you.

We will also talk about the difficulties you are having and how they impact your daily life, along with relevant information about your physical and mental health.

If you want to go ahead with an assessment we will usually then complete some tasks which measure your memory and other thinking skills at this appointment. It is helpful if you can bring any hearing aids and/or glasses that you may need. Please also bring with you a list of your current medications.

Following our first meeting, we may ask you to have further investigations such as blood tests, an ECG (recording of the heart) and brain imaging such as an MRI head scan. We will discuss these investigations with you and get your consent before we go ahead with any of them. Depending on the outcome of all of this information, we may identify the need for further investigations, such as an assessment of how you complete tasks at home, or more detailed testing of your memory and other thinking skills.

These would be completed by our occupational therapist, clinical psychologist or assistant psychologist, and we would talk to you about whether you wanted to go ahead with this.

The whole assessment is not designed to be intrusive but to help us gather as much information as possible in order to give an accurate diagnosis during your follow up appointment.

Once all the assessments and investigations necessary have been completed we will arrange a follow up appointment with one of our clinicians to discuss our findings and explain what will happen next. You are welcome to have a family member, carer or friend present at this meeting.

Due to the complexity, the diagnostic assessment can take some time, however we will be in touch as soon as we are able to discuss your results and next steps. Please do contact us on 0115 956 0884 if you have any questions in the meantime. Please also contact us on 0115 956 0884 if you require an interpreter for your appointments.

Whilst you are waiting for your appointment to take place, you can also contact the Alzheimer's Society Dementia Support Line on 0333 150 3456 or visit their website. They support people who are going through an assessment process but may not have a dementia, as well as people who have a dementia diagnosis and can give you support and advice, and connect you to the help you may need.