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Dr. Christine Miller is a care of the elderly doctor. She says the territory needs a dedicated geriatric health service to support its aging population. (Submitted by Christine Miller )<\/p>\nDon Cheeseman spent most of his life lecturing and teaching.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, the retired electrical engineer can be found writing, cooking and tending to his garden at his home in Whitehorse\u2019s Porter Creek neighbourhood, where he has lived since 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recently, his regular pastimes have become more challenging, even frustrating at times. Cheeseman lives with a mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to dementia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have definitely shrunk back into myself,\u201d he said. \u201cMy biggest problem I would say is that socializing is way lower than I would like it to be\u2026. My attention span is very short and I’m impatient with people, including myself and my wife, which doesn’t do any good in any case at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheeseman\u2019s path to a diagnosis was a unique one. Instead of getting diagnosed by his family doctor, he received a postcard from the University of British Columbia, inviting him to take part in a study about dementia and cognitive decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through that study, 86-year-old Cheeseman learned he had a mild cognitive impairment. If it hadn\u2019t been for that postcard, Cheeseman says, he doesn\u2019t think he would have received a diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m functioning, so I probably just would have been a grouchy old man and nobody would have caught it.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
President of the Yukon Medical Association, Dr. Derek Bryant, says getting a dementia diagnosis in the territory is challenging because about 22 per cent of Yukoners don\u2019t have a family physician.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those without access, it could be quite difficult to get a diagnosis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As the Yukon population ages, age-related health concerns, including dementia, are expected to rise. Doctors say the territory needs a geriatric health service where family and emergency physicians can refer patients to physicians with specialized training in senior care, including providing dementia diagnoses.<\/p>\n
\u2018We never used to have an aging population\u2019<\/p>\n
Dr. Christine Miller is a care of the elderly doctor who practices as a family physician. She says in the last 10 years, the number of seniors in the Yukon has increased dramatically.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never used to have an aging population. It used to be 60 to 65 and you’d be retiring south and that was just sort of a deal of living up here,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo traditionally we never had an older population that would require specialized services, but we’re currently sitting right now around \u2014 I think it’s 7,500 seniors over the ages of 65, which is around 15 per cent of our population.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Christine Miller is a care of the elderly doctor. She says the territory needs a dedicated geriatric health service to support its aging population. (Submitted by Christine Miller )<\/p>\n
Miller says with more doctors trained to treat and diagnose age-related health concerns, those with dementia may be able to get an earlier and more specific diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo my job as a doctor who works with older clients is to determine not only, yes you have dementia, but why that memory change is occurring,” she said. \u201cSo is it due to something like Alzheimer’s disease [or] vascular disease.\u201d<\/p>\n
More data, more services\u00a0<\/p>\n