Early Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease

Hearing that your senior loved one has Alzheimer’s disease may be something that you dread as a family caregiver, but ignoring the possibility or not understanding the potential can be extremely risky. As with other health conditions and challenges, early detection of Alzheimer’s disease is critical to getting your parent an accurate diagnosis and ensuring that they get on the course of care and management that is right for them and their particular needs.

It is important to note that Alzheimer’s can develop slowly and many people have actually been living with the disease for several years before they are diagnosed. This means that the earliest signs of the condition can be extremely subtle, and it is important that you not only detect them, but act on them as quickly as possible to improve your parent’s quality of life as they age in place.

Some of the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease include:

• Memory loss that goes beyond normal age-related changes and negatively impact daily functioning and quality of life
• Changes in their ability to make plans or use their judgement effectively
• Sudden difficulty with tasks throughout their home, work, or recreation that are familiar and have not posed a challenge to them in the past
• Noticeably losing track of the days or seeming to not know the month, season, or even year
• Having difficulty understanding that something happened in the past or that you are talking about something that will happen in the future
• Difficulty remembering where they are, how they got there, or why they went there
• New challenges with spatial relationship or having difficulty interpreting visual images effectively
• Difficulty following a conversation that is outside of their character. This might include stopping without finishing sentences, using nonsense sounds in place of words, or not seeming to understand what people are saying to them
• Frequently misplacing things and not being able to go back and retrace their steps in order to look for them.

Caring for a senior adult with Alzheimer’s disease can be extremely challenging. If you are on this type of journey with your aging loved one, starting senior care for them might be the best decision that you can make for both of you. A senior home care services provider can be with your parent on the customized schedule that is right for them.

This means that whether they have extensive care needs or are only at the beginning of their progression with the disease, you can both feel confident that they are getting the level of care, support, and assistance that is right for them. The senior care provider can work with your parent to help them manage their individual needs, challenges, and limitations while also supporting as active, fulfilling, and independent a lifestyle as possible.

By helping to keep them safe, healthy, and comfortable while helping them to pursue activity, engagement, and involvement, this senior care provider can help your parent see that there can still be meaning and value in this new chapter of their lives even as they move through their progression with the disease.