Five Warning Signs of Alzheimer’s
Memory loss -- A very common, early sign of the disease is memory loss that results in disruption of daily life. The person with AD may forget newly learned information, then remember it later. Placement of items in odd places is also common, as is the loss of the ability to backtrack to try to locate lost items. You may find keys in the refrigerator, for example. There also may be difficulty in finishing everyday things such as a conversation or a familiar task such as driving to the store. This symptom becomes more pronounced as the disease progresses. Also people with AD may lose track of dates, seasons and the passage of time.
Decreased or Poor Judgment – Alzheimer’s sufferers often have difficulty concentrating, resulting in longer times to do everyday tasks. There are often challenges as a person with AD deals with changes in his or her own ability to devise and complete plans, though these plans may be very important. Numbers can be especially confusing for a person, as can the ability to handle money. We’ve all heard of stories of the elderly getting bilked out of thousands of dollars by unscrupulous rip-off artists. Personal hygiene may suffer as the disease progresses. The person may not realize or care that he or she hasn’t changed clothes in days or that he or she has forgotten how to brush teeth.
Trouble with both words and understanding spatial relationships -- Everyone has problems retrieving words that are “right on the tip of my tongue.” Amplify this by hundreds of times a day, and you begin to understand the frustration Alzheimer’s sufferers feel to identify or say something. At times, someone with AD may be in the middle of a discussion and realize that he or she doesn’t remember what the conversation was about. To the sufferer's chagrin, this could happen mid-sentence.
For some, vision problems signal the onset of Alzheimer’s. These symptoms include difficulty reading or judging distances and the inability to detect colors. Perception can be skewed as the person with AD may pass a mirror and not recognize him- or herself. Instead, he or she may think there is someone else in the room.