Recognizing Symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease

Recognizing the signs of Alzheimer's disease is necessary in getting a diagnosis and receiving treatment early so that maybe the symptoms will slow down. It is difficult to recognize the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in the young age group or at an early stage of life. Most of the people complaining of memory loss, who regularly see a doctor, cannot even recognize the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Some families even hide these symptoms as they mistake it for the common signs of aging. In certain cases, these symptoms of Alzheimer's disease emerge so slow that the individual or family affected by it do not even recognize the symptoms until the disease is at a higher level. Recognizing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease at the earliest stage possible is important because it allows a doctor to control the changing behavior pattern or delay it with medicines. So meet a doctor if you have any of the listed symptoms:

Impaired Memory
Impaired memory marks the beginning of Alzheimer's disease. In the beginning a person tends to forget things, which makes it difficult to recognize the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. In regular day to day activity, short-term memory is vital for interaction and performing regular tasks but as the disease progresses, the impaired memory reaches a stage where in a person even forgets who he is.

Changes in Personality, Mood, and Decision Making Abilities
A person, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease usually disassociates himself from his/her regular activities. They may become easily irritated or furious. Their eating habits may change to dislike the food items he used to eat fondly. Their sleeping pattern may undergo a change; their sleep may become increase or decrease. Their energy may go down, and this, in turn, may cause the person to feel guilty of his situation. He/she may remain depressed much or most of the time. Their decision ability decreases, and his sense of judgment also may become impaired.

Aphasia-Language Comprehension Disability
In this stage, a person looses familiarity with words and its pronunciations. Their ability to comprehend meanings of words goes down. In many cases, they substitute a similar-sounding word like “thing and think “. As the disease progresses, language ability is lost and the person goes silent.

Loss of Basic Activity Skills or Apraxia
The ability to walk, bath, wearing a dress and even eating food is severely affected. A person with apraxia forgets to perform these tasks. At a later stage, the ability to sit and stand or any other body movement becomes impossible. In some cases, this problem starts suddenly. The upper limbs often show the first sign of Apraxia with uncontrolled hand movement. It may also become difficult to dress and undress, and perform other such tasks.

Behavioral Changes
The person with Alzheimer’s may demonstrate bad behavior more often and become more stubborn. He or she may even refuse to accept care, and may participate in unsafe activities. Pacing or hand-wringing, aimlessly wandering, using obscene or abusive language are also common behavioral changes. Some people even indulge in stealing or hiding things. Some even go to the extent of attempting out of place sexual behavior, urinating in unsuitable places, or other unacceptable behaviors.

Terrible Reaction
The person with Alzheimer’s may exhibit strange and angry emotional responses to common situations with a sudden outburst of tears inconsolably; they may shout or attack persons for no apparent reason. Situations may suddenly trigger stress, fatigue, and inability to control reactions.


A Late Evening Problem or Sundowning
Sundowning is a situation, which occurs in the evening or night time. A low light contributes to misinterpretation of a visual. A small situation often transforms to a big outburst. This happens because the tolerance level for managing stress reduces in the person suffering with Alzheimer’s.

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