Can MRI diagnose dementia?  The answer is complicated…. It can definitely help in the diagnosis.

In Radiology, patients pose this question often. “Can MRI show if I have dementia?” In fact, we scan patients every day with a diagnosis of dementia, memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and confusion, among a variety of other neurological disorders.

The truth is that MRI is NOT the test to formally diagnose dementia. But to understand how MRI fits into the diagnosis process of a patient with suspected dementia, one must first understand how dementia is defined.

Dementia is a general term for neurocognitive deficiencies that impair or interfere with living a normal life due to memory deficits, decision making issues, or difficulty thinking clearly. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common and well known rendition of dementia, but there are other forms of the disease as well.  Continue reading →

Trends in medicine change over time, and generally it’s for the best. In the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, the prescription drug market was booming. Scientists and physicians were able to create drugs that prevented, treated, and even cured disease processes and ailments that were previously hard for patients to live with. Common examples were medications for treatment of high blood pressure or high cholesterol, esophageal reflux disease, joint pain, erectile dysfunction, and even more severe disease processes like certain cancers. 

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When patients think of MRI, they often think of a “coffin” or a long “tunnel.” For the majority of time that MRI has existed, they weren’t that far off! Traditional closed MRI units have long bores (tubes) and take an extended time to complete an exam.  Continue reading →

Since the introduction of the novel virus known as COVID-19, the world has been forced to evolve quickly in order to understand the virus and manage the care of those who have become infected. 

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Pregnancy is a beautiful, meaningful stage of womanhood.  It allows us to nurture, teach, and invest in another life. Pregnancy also allows us to grow and mature, as we grow in the understanding that another life depends on us. 

By definition, pregnancy is the development of one or more offspring, known as an embryo or fetus, in a woman’s uterus. During pregnancy, women get to experience feelings and sensations that are new and exciting; especially in the first trimester.

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Apart from skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lifetime. While the cause is unclear, experts agree that prostate cancer starts when DNA within cells in the prostate gland mutate and multiply quicker than normal cells. These rogue cells gather to form tumors and, like most cancers, spread to other areas of the body if not caught early enough. 

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