Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease

With Alzheimer's disease, nerve cells in the brain die slowly. This makes it ever more difficult for your brain's signals to be sent appropriately. Alzheimer's disease symptoms may be hard to distinguish at first. You may think that symptoms such as forgetfulness or an occasional loss of focus are normal signs of aging. As the disease progresses, Alzheimer's disease symptoms become more than "normal" changes. They become terrifying, unbearable, and dangerous. In the latter stages of disease, people with Alzheimer's often require round-the-clock care.

One of the most frequent signs of Alzheimer's is memory loss, particularly forgetting recently learned information. Others include forgetting important dates or events; asking for the same information over and over; increasingly needing to rely on memory aids or family members for things they used to handle on their own. Some people may experience changes in their ability to develop and follow a plan or work with numbers. They may have trouble following a familiar recipe or keeping track of monthly bills. They may have complexity concentrating and take much longer to do things than they did before. People with Alzheimer's often find it hard to complete daily tasks. Sometimes, people may have trouble driving to a familiar location, organizing a budget at work.

Those who have Alzheimer's can lose track of dates, seasons and the passage of time. Sometimes they may forget where they are or how they got there. For some people, having vision problems is a sign of Alzheimer's. They may have difficulty reading, judging distance and determining color or contrast, which may cause problems with driving.A person with Alzheimer's disease may put things in unusual places. They may lose things and be unable to go back over their steps to find them again. Sometimes, they may accuse others of stealing. This may occur more frequently over time. The mood and personalities of people with Alzheimer's can change. They can become confused, suspicious, depressed, fearful or anxious. They may be easily upset at home, at work, with friends or in places where they are out of their comfort zone.

There are different types of the disease. Early-onset Alzheimer's disease, which people are diagnosed with the disease before age 65, appears to be linked with a genetic defect on chromosome 14. A condition called myoclonus a form of muscle twitching and spasm is also more commonly seen in early-onset Alzheimer's than in late-onset Alzheimer's. Late-onset Alzheimer's is the most common form of Alzheimer's disease, and usually occurs after age 65. Late-onset dementia is also called sporadic Alzheimer's disease. Familial Alzheimer's disease. This is a form of Alzheimer's disease that is known to be entirely inherited.

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