Irony and Cognitive Screening

Today I got a survey from Medpage today about screening for "cognitive decline".  I find it rich that a medical website would worry about "screening" for cognitive decline when they themselves are doing their level best to CAUSE AND CREATE cognitive decline.  How many drugs besides their favorite, Versed, cause cognitive decline?  Statins spring to mind.

Exactly how is "cognitive screening" helpful to a patient?  What are they going to do with subjective and arbitrary results?  Is there a CURE for cognitive decline such that early prevention might help?  Can they treat the "disease"?  So the point of having a mandatory cognitive screening at age 60 is beneficial for...?    I see where it would be helpful for the estate lawyers, errant children determined to wrest control of the family assets from their parent and insurance industry people looking for ways to exclude people from coverage.  For them this "screening" might be most beneficial.  Not to mention the medical behemoth being able to have yet one more "routine screening" with a cost in the thousands to be run on their hapless patients. Maybe medical people should try testing some of their Versed patients for "cognitive decline" after they deliberately and maliciously create the same problem they now want to test for.  Let's see how responsible they are about using the drug after the test results show how harmful Versed is on cognitive function.

The next step would be to deny anybody whose "screening" appears abnormal (subjective) a drivers license?  Will they revoke say, a plastic surgeon's license or are the medical professionals going to be exempt?  Is the government prepared to pay disability on these poor people who have been "diagnosed" as inferior?  Who will pay for the lawyers that will inevitably be involved after a diagnosis of "cognitive decline".  Are physicians ready for a spike in their malpractice insurance due to (mis)diagnosis of "cognitive decline"?  I don't like the turn that medical care has taken...at...all.

Sure, let's give all our patients a drug(s) that are known to cause cognitive dysfunction and then "diagnose" them with same and ruin their life.  There is no cure for the new "disease" so none of this is for patient benefit.