01 Feb 5 Early Signs of Dementia You Need To Know About
Early Signs of Dementia can be difficult to identify if we don’t know about them. Dementia is a term used to describe a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severely enough to interfere with your daily life. It isn’t a specific disease, but several diseases can cause dementia.
Our brain develops neurological stages even since the fertilization; it never stops working and growing, therefor, at some age, it functions differently. When getting old, our body gets slower and some illness might appear, some of them appear on our physical health and others comes with our neurological system.
Dementia is a quite common illness when we talk about the senior citizens. Different types of dementia can affect people differently, and everyone will experience symptoms in their own way. The early signs of dementia might be hard to identify at first, attributing them to just aging, but when we learn more about them, it’s easier to identify them.
Dementia symptoms vary depending on the cause, but common signs and symptoms include:
- Memory Problems
- Difficulty Concentrating
- Language and Speech Difficulties
- Poor Judgement and Decision Making
- Changes in Mood and Personality
Keep reading to learn more about these Early Signs of Dementia…
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Memory problems
It is quite common to forget things in our life. Even if we are not distracted, we have too much information at day that is normal to forget things and remember them later. But when a person has dementia, the memory loss increases more and more, and sometimes they even forget things that they use to do on their daily basis.
Memory problems is one of the most common early sings of dementia, it can be hard remembering what they just did or how to do something, to forget even their closest family members. Time and space can also be forgotten when the dementia is increasing, and sometimes they can even forget who they are.
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Difficulty Concentrating
While concentrating might be difficult sometimes, for people with dementia it is even harder. Not being able to concentrate occasionally is completely normal, we can have a lot in our mind, or the surroundings are not the best place to concentrate. But when someone has dementia, it does not matter if they are in the most comfortable space, it does not matter how hard they try to focus, concentration can go as air. If we identify that our beloved senior has difficulty concentrating, it might be one of the early signs of dementia.
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Language and Speech Difficulties
People with dementia can have trouble with language, even if it is with their first language. On the early signs of dementia, they can forget words, phrases, or anything to make a phrase. Even they can forget the idea they had in mind. Phrases can have no sense at all, or it can be hard to understand them.
Dementia will affect the brain slowly, making it hard for the person with it to communicate their ideas or feelings. The only thing that we can do it is to help them and try to understand what they are trying to say. Help them with their necessities and their daily life.
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Poor Judgement and Decision Making
As we grow up, we are capable to make our own choices, and even when we are teenagers, we tend to have troubles with making decisions or we not always take the ones that will help us the best. Regardless of that, as we grow older, even if our judgement gets wiser, when a person has dementia, everything can get a little bit difficult. What we think it is a good decision can be a bad.
In this stage of early signs of dementia, it might be better to have someone to be with the person most part of the day, because not only they might forget their daily activities, but they might take not so good decisions about what they are going to do.
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Changes in Mood and Personality
Let’s not forget that dementia affect our brain so it is normal to find that people that has it can present changes in their mood and in their personality. As they tend to forget episodes of their life, it is quite common to find changes in their personality, however, we should not reprimand them because of that, people with dementia cannot control what their illness is doing with them. We must accept that this is part of life and the only thing that we can do is to love our relative.
If you are concerned about any of these Early Signs of Dementia, the next step is to talk to your doctor.
Whether you’re concerned for yourself or someone you care about, it’s important to know the warning signs of dementia so you can ensure an early diagnosis.
Visit a doctor if you or a loved one has memory problems or other dementia symptoms. Some treatable medical conditions can cause dementia symptoms, so it’s important to determine the cause.
Only a qualified healthcare provider, after multiple assessment and tests, can confirm whether you or someone you know has dementia. You can learn more about dementia at alz.com, an Association dedicated to accelerating global research, driving risk reduction and early detection, and maximizing quality care and support of Alzheimer and other dementias.
A Retirement Community for a Better Quality of Life for the Elderly with Early Signs of Dementia
How to Correctly Choose a Retirement Community is really important. As dementia increase, we might not be capable to take care of our relative with it; therefore, we should look for someone who can take care of them. A retirement community with assisted living can be the best choice when is about a long-term illness.
In an assisted living community, there is a lot of medical staff well prepare to take care of the elderly with their different illness that age can bring with. So, do not hesitate to ask for the specifications that they offer. The most important thing here is that our relative gets the proper care and treatment and, even if we love them, even if we try to help them as much as we can, sometimes, because our abilities is not enough.
Even if they are in the early signs of dementia or with the illness already develop, a retirement community would be ideal if we feel that we need help taking care of our relative. Taking them to an assisted living community is a way to help too. And with the professional staff, our relative will be just fine.
Early signs of dementia might be at the beginning quite hard to see, but once we identify them, the only thing we can do is love our family member and take care of them.
