Imagine if you couldn’t remember how to get home from the supermarket or if you couldn’t recall your best friend’s name. Frustrating isn’t it? Memory loss is a characteristic early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is the most common mental disorder to affect people. Though there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease as yet, an early diagnosis can help doctors slow the progression of the disease and improve the patient’s quality of life. Alzheimer’s symptoms progress slowly and people in the late stages of this disease cannot look after themselves. Some of the Alzheimer’s symptoms other than memory loss to look out for are:

• Difficulty Focusing: Alzheimer’s can make simple tasks like following a recipe difficult. People may also face difficulties working with number of creating a plan. Things that took just a few minutes to do earlier may start taking longer because the person cannot focus on what he is doing. This may also make a person ramble without realizing or stop mid-sentence.

• Confusion with Times and Places: People suffering from this condition may have trouble understanding an event if it is not happening at that moment or if they are not a part of it. They may also often get confused with dates, months and seasons. Forgetting how they got somewhere is another characteristic Alzheimer’s symptom.

• Trouble with Spatial Relationships: Alzheimer’s patients can have difficulties distinguishing between colors and while judging distances. This can make them feel lost in places that they have been to before.

• Poor Judgment: An Alzheimer’s patient may begin to show poor judgment in his or her decisions regarding money and lifestyle. Failing to groom themselves and keep themselves clean is one such example. They may also make reckless decisions when dealing with money such as give away large sums of money to anyone who asks for it.

• Mood Swings: People suffering from this condition may often become disoriented and upset when there are not in their comfort zone. This can make them confused, anxious and suspicious of people even though they may know them.

• Frustration: Coordination problems and not being able to do things can make an Alzheimer’s patient extremely frustrated. In some cases, they may even be able to recognize the loss of control over their body which is cause for even more frustration.

Given how memory loss is often also associated with other aging related issues, it is important to be able to distinguish between normal memory loss caused by advancement in age and memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s. Forgetting appointments once in a while or forgetting the date is okay as long as you can remember them later. Normal memory loss may also make you forget certain words once in a while or make you misplace things. However, if you constantly call people by wrong names or find yourself frequently accusing people of stealing from you when you can’t find something you put away, it is time to get yourself tested.

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurological condition that destroys brain cells. This leads to memory loss and various cognitive problems. Alzheimer’s symptoms progress slowly but worsen with time. Once the disease affects brain functions, the condition of patients keeps getting worse.

Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease disrupts brain function and affects memory. Alzheimer’s symptoms are not reversible or treatable.
Every person with Alzheimer’s disease may experience one or many of the below-listed symptoms differently.

• Memory loss: The most common of all Alzheimer’s symptoms is the loss of memory to an extent that it begins to affect a person’s everyday life. Due to memory loss, patients also begin to experience confusion. They may forget familiar routes, not remember important events and regularly begin to misplace things. They may also wander off at different times of the day to go find something or someone. Memory loss itself is not always the same. Patients may remember the information they forgot a few hours ago. The disorder especially affects short-term memory.

• Language problems: Another symptom of the disease is the problems with language skills. Alzheimer’s affects several cognitive functions. Stopping a conversation due to forgetting what they were talking about and not remembering words and names are some examples.

• Changes in behavior: Experiencing behavioral changes such as depression, fear, paranoia and anxiety is a characteristic Alzheimer’s symptom.

• Judgment impairment: Alzheimer’s symptoms almost always lead to poor or impaired judgment. Someone with the disease may handle money poorly, not care about basic grooming and hygiene and display inappropriate behavior. Some of these judgment problems concerning money (such as withholding payments) may stem from their increasing mistrust of people in general.

• Lack of interest: Due to memory loss, confusion and other Alzheimer’s symptoms, patients generally begin to lose interest in their hobbies, in meeting with family and socializing. Apathy may also be a result of patients feeling ashamed of their symptoms and thus they begin to withdraw from people. They might not feel motivated anymore and lose interest in life in general.
Some of the other Alzheimer’s symptoms that patients may experience are trouble with vision (different from age-related eye problems), declining motor skills, agitation, anger and loss of appetite.

Symptoms of Severe Alzheimer’s

When Alzheimer’s becomes severe, patients may also experience a few additional symptoms. People with the most severe stage of the disease, or as it is called late Alzheimer’s, may experience one or more of the following symptoms
• Problems with bowel and bladder control
• Extreme paranoia leading to hallucinations
• Weight loss
• Seizures
• Difficulty swallowing food
• Not able to express themselves at all
• Increasing confusion
• Skin infections
• Extreme mood swings
• Difficulty with mobility

It is possible to manage Alzheimer’s symptoms with timely diagnosis. If you see a family member struggle with early signs of the disease, help them see a doctor without delay. Timely diagnosis can help in maintaining a better quality of life for the patients.