Yvonne P.

CaringAI Listen screen completed Jul 25, 2026, eight minutes even, six weeks into sertraline 50 mg. MyCog total 27 of 30, up from 23 at the May screen taken two weeks after her husband's death. PHQ-9 down from nineteen to eight. Delayed recall three of three, having been one of three in May. She is back at her Thursday choir and has resumed driving to the supermarket.

In May she was convinced she was developing dementia and asked directly whether she should be looking at a care home. The May screen looked bad enough that a referral was drafted and then held, on the argument that a PHQ-9 of nineteen two weeks into acute grief will take a cognitive score down with it. Clarity supported holding: her articulatory precision was normal throughout and the deficit sat almost entirely in prosodic range and timing, the pattern that tracks mood rather than degeneration.

Plan: continue sertraline 50 mg, review at three months. Neuropsychology referral remains withdrawn. Repeat screen at six months rather than three given the trajectory. Bereavement counselling continuing fortnightly. Told her plainly that the numbers went the right way, which she asked about first and twice.

CT head without contrast, May 21, 2026, obtained during the acute presentation when a rapid four point drop in cognitive score raised the question of a structural cause. Findings: age appropriate cerebral volume loss, mild periventricular low attenuation consistent with chronic small vessel change, Fazekas grade 1 equivalent. No acute infarct, no haemorrhage, no mass, no hydrocephalus, no subdural collection.

Impression: no structural explanation for the interval cognitive change. In retrospect the negative scan plus a preserved articulatory precision read is what made the depressive picture the leading explanation, and the July screen confirmed it. No further imaging planned.