Medical and Healthcare – Alzheimer’s Symptoms
Alzheimer’s is a disease which is constantly progressive, affecting your memory and other vital functions of the brain. In the very initial stages people suffering from Alzheimer’s may experience slight confusion and difficulty in remembering things. Eventually, when the disease progresses to an advanced stage, the patients tend to forget people in their lives and go through dramatic changes in their personalities. Alzheimer’s is the most common reason for dementia, a mental disorder that causes loss of memory and social and intellectual skills. One of the significant causes leading to Alzheimer’s is the degeneration of brain cells causing it to die which leads to steady decline in the mental functions and memory.
Key symptoms of Alzheimer’s
Loss of memory
Loss of memory is one of the biggest symptoms of Alzheimer’s. It’s normal to have occasional lapses of memory but with Alzheimer’s patients it becomes increasingly worse and they start to forget almost everything they have learned in their lives. People with Alzheimer’s usually repeat their questions and statements over and over again. They forget appointments, events and conversations easily and also often misplace possessions easily. Eventually they even end up forgetting their family members and everyday stuff.
Reasoning and thinking
Patients with Alzheimer’s lose the ability of thinking and concentrating on things especially abstract stuff such as numbers. Multi-tasking becomes very difficult and they are unable to recognize or process numbers.
Judgments and decisions
The Alzheimer’s patients find it extremely difficult to respond to everyday situations such as burning food on stove or unanticipated driving situations because of the their degenerated mental state.
Performing and planning familiar tasks
Everyday routine activities which require sequential steps such as cooking or playing certain games become difficult for Alzheimer’s patients. Eventually, these patients also forget to perform basic tasks such as bathing and changing clothes amongst other things.
Personality and behavioural changes
People with Alzheimer’s undergo personality changes due to the way the disease affects their brain and mental functioning. Alzheimer’s patients are likely to experience social withdrawal, depression, mood swings, apathy, change in sleeping patterns, wandering, distrust, aggressiveness, irritability and delusions amongst several other abnormal behavioral patterns.
The Alzheimer’s patients lose their acquired skills such as music, singing, dancing and crafts only in the advanced stage of their disease. The part of the brain which stores this information is affected only in the later stages of the disease. For Alzheimer’s early detection and treatment is important in order to avoid rapid decline of the mental health.
