 Annual wellness visits for patients 65 years and older now consists of a new screening. Our Sarah Winkleman shows us how dementia screenings will now take place during visits to essential health. As patients go for their annual wellness visit, a wide range of health aspects are reviewed and tested. Part of the annual wellness visit is assessing things that put older adults at risk. So we look at nutrition, we look at self-care, home-making care, transportation, financial, shopping. During the visit, it has always been routine to have the patients fill out a questionnaire about their daily health and ask them about their memory. First ask someone if they're having any memory problems, if they're noticing any changes in their memory. Oftentimes they are. A lot of people have comments that they're forgetting names and they but they recall them usually after a few minutes. Recently implemented, the wellness visits will now give a more direct dementia screening that takes about three to five minutes to complete. We ask them to remember three words and they and they repeat them back to us and then we have them draw a picture of a clock with a set to a specific time. Now if the results of that screening are abnormal, they will be given an additional screening a few weeks later. And it's a little bit more involved. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes kind of depending and we do provide some education at that point. Education and resources that will guide patients on what the next steps are. The goal is to get people hooked up with what they need or get people established with the care that they need prior to a crisis. A preventative measure that is available to those 65 years and older. The annual wellness visit is a it's a no copay service from Medicare so so it's free to the patient for their preventative wellness screening every year. The dementia screenings are now a standard at all essential health clinic locations. Reporting in Brainerd, Sarah Winkleman, Lakeland News. The dementia screenings will be part of wellness visits now throughout the year. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland public television.