Science!

CNN) — Imagine: You and your sister are 66-year-old twins on Medicare who share the same family history of Alzheimer’s disease, making an early diagnosis critical for long-term planning and preventive health care.

Since Medicare provides coverage for a cognitive screening as part of each year’s wellness visit, you believe that diagnosis, if needed, will occur.

Let’s say you live in Hartford, Connecticut. Your sister is some 26 miles away in Springfield, Massachusetts — so close that you often share Sunday dinners.

Yet according to a new study, you are 18% more likely to obtain a diagnosis of dementia in Hartford than your sister in Springfield.

How could this be? According to Medicare data, the health care system in Connecticut may be doing a better job than Massachusetts of screening and diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias and referring patients to specialists, said lead study author Julie Bynum, a professor of internal medicine and geriatric and palliative medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

Such disparities happen across the United States, Bynum said. In fact, depending on your ZIP code, you may be twice as likely to be diagnosed in some areas of the country as others.

Compared with the national average, people who live in ZIP codes with the lowest diagnostic intensity — a measure of how often doctors offer tests and treatments to patients — are 28% less likely to get a timely diagnosis, the study found.

Those who live in regions with the highest diagnostic intensity — where physicians may be more aggressive in their level of care — are 36% more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, according to the study…….,

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/26/health/dementia-zip-code-wellness?cid=ios_app