A psychologist’s first task when assessing an older adult for dementia is to discriminate between normal cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia. Teaching an older adult how to increase positive neuroplasticity is a useful intervention that will improve functioning in an older adult experiencing mild cognitive impairment, and will delay the progression of cognitive deterioration in an older adult experiencing dementia. Assessment of deficits in olfactory functioning are potentially useful for a psychologist who is attempting to differentiate between cognitive disturbances of normal aging and mild cognitive impairment that may progress to Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic, debilitating disease process that begins with inclusions of abnormal proteins in neurons in the brain, although this stage of the illness does not demonstrate any cognitive impairment in the older adult.