As you grow old, you should know that it is normal that your memory changes. However there are extreme cases wherein your memory loss totally disrupts your everyday life and that is not the typical part of aging. Memory loss and decline of reasoning skills are symptoms of dementia and the most common form is Alzheimer’s disease.
You have to know the difference between Alzheimer’s disease and the typical age-related changes so you can identify it once you or your loved ones suffer from it. Here are the differences:
In terms of judgement: For people with Alzheimer’s, they have poor judgement and decision making that gradually worsen as time goes by. For people with typical age-related changes, it is more of making bad decisions every once in a while.
In terms of budgeting: For people with Alzheimer’s disease, budgeting seems to be difficult as time progresses to the point that they are unable to manage it. For people with typical age-related changes, you might miss a monthly payment maybe once or twice but not successively.
Losing track of time: You lose track of time, season or date at some point in time but that is perfectly normal. What’s not normal is losing track of it to the point that you have no idea what is the season or date at the moment and keeps on forgetting it later on. For people with age-related changes, they just forget which day it is and then remembering it later on.
In terms of conversing: For people with Alzheimer’s disease, they seem withdrawn. This is because they are having difficulty making decision. When this happens, it is important that the family never ignore the person. As for people with age-related changes, they just forget the right or fitting word to use.
Losing things: It is quite normal to lose things once in a while but for people with Alzheimer’s disease, misplacing things and not able to find or retrace it occur all the time. For people with age-related changes, they tend to lose things from time to time but then find it after sometime.
With these, you should be able to identify the difference between Alzheimer’s and age-related changes. Alzheimer’s is often the case of Singaporeans these days between ages of 50 to 65 or older. There are others cases where some patients suffer early onset. If you know someone who is enduring this, you have to extend your patience and spend more time caring for them. Do not ignore them.
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