Are you concerned about your own memory or about a family member or a friend? Or are you a carer (or caregiver) for someone who has got dementia? Then this section of the GPCOG website is for you.
As the name suggests the “General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition (GPCOG)” and its supporting website were originally designed for General Practitioners. It is a screening test for cognitive impairment that should be only administered by trained medical staff rather than by concerned family members.
Carers and the GPCOG
Even if it appears to be a simple test you should NOT administer the test to yourself or others unless you are trained to do so.
This is for many reasons. One of which is the GPCOG is a screening instrument only. Therefore testing positive on the GPCOG doesn’t necessarily mean someone has got dementia. There are many other conditions which can mimic the symptoms of memory loss or dementia. Only trained medical staff can request further medical investigations which are necessary to establish and confirm a diagnosis. Another very important point is cognitive testing can be confronting and distressing for the person who is tested, which may require psychological attention and counselling. Let a professional health care worker handle this rather than putting you under the stress to deal with a distressed loved one. Last but not least, cognitive tests are susceptible to training effects, i.e. the more often you do the same test the better you perform. So chances are that if you administer the test to your family member at home they might score negative (i.e. showing no impairment) when assessed by a doctor due to training effects which will only delay the progress of receiving a proper diagnosis and getting access to available support services. Even though it might be tempting, we do ask you NOT to administer the GPCOG yourself but ask a doctor or other health care professional to do so.
Support for carers
However, we do not want to leave you without any information or support. In fact, the carer feedback we have received to date indicates that carers need information and help the most. To cater for this demand we have created the carer section. In the carer section, you’ll find links to other organisations such as Alzheimer Associations worldwide which provide information and support for people with dementia and their families. Please scroll down for a list of national and international Alzheimer organisations.
You may also find useful information on this website or here
Please note that the list of links is not comprehensive and we don’t necessarily agree with all content provided on other websites but they might help you find the information that you are looking for. As a service for you, we will be updating this section with new links as we become aware of them. If you know of a good website that was helpful for you, please let us know by sending an email to gpcog@unsw.edu.au. We will then get in contact with the hosts of this website and ask for their permission to add a link.
You can also search this section by the country you live in. To do so, just navigate to your country in the below list.
List of national and international Alzheimer Organisations:
China: no website
Cuba: no website
Links for Australia:
Links for the US:
