Recognizing Early Signs of Dementia: Common Symptoms, Red Flags, and What to Do

2023-08-23 13:00:00

“Csome people may struggle to find a word, briefly forget the name of a celebrity, or why they walked into a room, lists Aaron Bonner-Jackson, neuropsychologist. [Il s’agit] typical cognitive errors, things we all do on a fairly regular basis. A common misconception is that these signs indicate that you are inevitably [en train de développer une] dementia”. So how do you recognize the early signs of dementia?

Common symptoms at the start of dementia

To recognize dementia, it must first be clearly defined. It is a global and progressive intellectual impairment. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) dementia covers several diseases that affect memory, thinking and the ability to perform daily tasks, the most common of which is Alzheimer’s disease. Nearly 10 million new cases of dementia are reported each year worldwide, according to theNational Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). Age is one of the factors that increase the risk of dementia in people aged 65 and over.

Different signs can be harbingers of dementia. Regardless of the disease from which the patient suffers, these symptoms are generally the same at the onset of dementia. You have to know them, but not overinterpret them, because what matters is above all the recurrence and the inconvenience caused in daily life.

First of all, the fact of getting lost in a familiar place or, on a known path, of wandering without knowing where to go must call out. “If you’re driving around your neighborhood and you’ve done this route many times before, but suddenly things don’t feel familiar, that might be concerning,” says Dr. Bonner-Jackson.

Recurrent forgetfulness is a sign of dementia

Another red flag is forgetting conversations. Attention, it is not a question of the omission of a word, which happens to everyone, but of the total omission of a recent discussion which should alarm if it is recurrent.

“The hallmark of diseases like Alzheimer’s is short-term memory loss, where [les patients] don’t learn and store new memories as well as they used to, and that’s why they’ll ask the same questions over and over once more, says Dr. Bonner-Jackson. People can remember things from years ago with perfect clarity. They remember who they went to school with and their teacher’s name and what they did while in the military or in their first home. But it tends to be frustrating because they can’t remember what they did yesterday.” Forgetting the first name of a relative, once more, if this is frequent, can also be a sign.

Difficulty making decisions or integrating changes is also likely to be a sign. For example, if the doctor changes the treatment, but the patient does not implement this change. “Taking this new drug is no longer part of their routine, they forget they have to take it,” says Dr. Bonner-Jackson. “If someone has trouble making decisions or seems easily confused by things they might have normally managed, this can be a worrying situation”.

Other signals should also be monitored: the ability to make calculations, to manage money (in particular the payment of bills), changes in mood or behavior (anxiety, depression, more attraction to health centers). ‘interests). Finally, there are also physical signs such as reduced motor skills or hearing loss.

If in doubt, regardless of the symptoms that the patient or his entourage has noticed, he must speak to his general practitioner from the start so that, in the event of a positive diagnosis, treatment can be started as soon as possible.

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