If you suspect that someone, or even yourself might be suffering from memory loss, it coud be the first signs of dementia.
It as always a good idea to be checked by a doctor if you do suspect that yourself or somebody you know is having memory problems. If you or the individual are reluctant to see a GP, why not take a simple dementia test to see if your memory is being affected by something that needs further investigation.
What are the first signs of dementia?
- The person might have a problem finding the correct words to say. This can become more evident in a stressful situation. They could find difficulty in answering questions about themselves.
- In the first signs of dementia often family names become difficult to remember.
- The person may feel disoriented. Examples could be the person not recognising familiar places that you know they should know such as roads and areas near to where they live. The dementia sufferer could easily get confused about the time of day and start acting out-of-place, and example would be getting up in the middle of the night wanting to go somewhere.
- The person could have poor judgement on simple tasks, an example would be dressing inappropriately for the weather outside or being totally unaware of a dangerous situation.
- They may become withdrawn and depressed, have bouts of unexplained temper, or feel anxious and start to panic at simple tasks.
- They may have trouble thinking and speaking clearly. Doing practical tasks become more difficult and the order in which you go about doing a simple task becomes confused especially tasks that you used to do quite easily before.
A disease that has led to a person suffering from dementia can affect everyone differently so the symptoms of one person that has the condition may not be the same symptoms of another sufferer. What happens with one person is not what may happen to somebody else.
People who have dementia can often have good quality of life for a number of years. However the first signs of dementia will generally get progressively more severe with time. As the disease worsens you may find the symptoms get progressively worse and it may difficult to look after the sufferer.
If you notice the first signs of dementia it is very important to get help from social services, local doctors and most importantly, family and friends. There are some great helpful organisations on our Groups page that can help.