Signs of Alzheimer’s

1. Is there memory loss that disrupts daily life?

2. Is he struggling in planning or in solving problems?

3. Does he find completing familiar tasks (whether work or leisure) difficult?

4. Does he sometimes get confused over issues of space and/or time? (i.e. forget where he is, how he got there, or what day it is)

5. Is there trouble understanding visual images or spatial relationships? Maybe…judging distance or determining colors. Sometimes they’ll see themselves in a mirror and think there is someone else in the room.

6. Does she see problems with words, whether in speech or writing, cropping up?

7. Is he misplacing things or losing his ability to remember what he’s been doing in a way that exceeds the usual middle-age forgetfulness? Remember, many of these are merely matters of degree.

8. Does he display decreased or poor judgment? Is he making mistakes with money, saying things that are hurting inter-personal relationships, or perhaps not quite as attentive to personal grooming or hygiene as he used to?

9. Is he withdrawing from society? Is he more reclusive or introspective than usual? Sometimes, AD people will begin withdrawing because it’s becoming more and more difficult to understand the relationships or to remember the requisite information for good conversation.

10. And here’s a BIG judgment call. Is she seeing significant changes in mood and personality? Is he confused, suspicious, depressed, or anxious? Is he particularly thin-skinned? Does he seek to turn his life into repeatable, comfortable patterns so that he isn’t confused or anxious?

Each of these, by themselves or in different combinations, can be signs of completely different problems. Each must be judged by their degree. Everyone forgets things from time to time. Everyone gets a little blue or likes the comforts of the familiar at times. What we’re looking for is an overall trend.

If he’s showing a lot of these signs, maybe you need to get him checked out. There are some medications today that can be tremendously effective if they are applied early in the beginning stages.

On the other hand, if he’s only showing a few of these, and not such clear, neurobiological signs like change in visual perception or sense of time, then maybe it’s just sin catching up to him and we need to take a different approach.