Dementia is often thought of as a memory problem, such as when an older person asks the same questions over and over again or loses things. But the reality is that people with dementia not only experience problems in areas of cognition such as memory, learning, thinking, understanding and judgment: they can also experience changes in behavior.
I myself did not imagine that my grandmother's strange behaviors were an early warning sign of a much more serious illness. She got easily upset if something didn't go as she expected while she was cooking. She said she saw a woman around the house, even though she was alone. She also distrusted others and hid things in strange places.
These behaviors persisted for some time until he was finally diagnosed with dementia. That is why I think it is so important to understand what this disease is and how it manifests itself.
When an individual suffers cognitive and behavioral changes that interfere with their functional independence, they are considered to have dementia. However, when cognitive and behavioral changes do not interfere with a person's independence, but continue to negatively affect their relationships and work performance, we speak of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild behavioral impairment (MCoL), respectively.
MCoL and MCI can occur together, but in a third of people who develop Alzheimer's dementia, behavioral symptoms appear before cognitive decline. Detecting these behavioral changes, which emerge at older ages (from age 50) and represent a persistent change with respect to previous patterns, can be useful to apply preventive treatments before more serious symptoms appear. My research focuses on problem behaviors that indicate increased risk of dementia.
There are mainly five behaviors that should alert us if we observe them in friends and family over 50 years of age.
Many of us know someone who has suffered from dementia or cared for someone with dementia. Although people between 20 and 40 years old may think that this is not for them because they are decades away from dementia affecting them, it is important to be aware that it is not an individual journey. In 2020, in Canada, caregivers – including family, friends or neighbors – spent 26 hours a week helping seniors living with dementia. This is equivalent to 235,000 full-time jobs.
These numbers are expected to triple by 2050, so it is important to look for ways to counteract this by preventing or delaying the progression of dementia.
Although there is currently no cure for dementia, progress has been made towards developing effective treatments, which may work better earlier in the course of the disease.
Identifying people at risk for dementia by recognizing changes in cognition, function and behavior across the lifespan could help prevent the disease and its progression.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
