Occasional forgetfulness tin be blamed on advancing age, but a pattern of retentiveness loss or unusual changes in behavior should prompt concerns about an elderly parent's cognitive part.

Nosotros've all forgotten a person's proper noun, where we put our keys or whether we locked the front door after leaving dwelling. While these things indicate lapses in memory, experiencing them from time to fourth dimension doesn't mean we accept dementia. However, forgetting how to make alter for a transaction, how to use the telephone or how to find your way home probably points to a more serious underlying retentiveness problem, such as balmy cerebral harm, the early stages of Alzheimer's disease or another grade of dementia.

What Is Dementia?

Dementia is not a specific affliction. It is an umbrella term used to describe a drove of symptoms that include changes in thinking, retention and other cognitive functions. These symptoms can exist associated with a number of different neurological disorders that each bear on the brain in various ways. Dementia patients take significantly impaired intellectual functioning that interferes with their ability to complete activities of daily living (ADLs) and maintain relationships. Seniors with dementia may also lose the ability to solve problems and command their emotions, and they may experience personality changes and behavioral issues, such every bit agitation, delusions and hallucinations.

Initial warning signs are typically very subtle, and family members may not observe marked changes in a loved i'southward thinking, operation and behavior until they become more severe. Common red flags include:

  • Request the same questions or telling the same stories repeatedly
  • Not existence able to follow directions
  • An impaired concept of time
  • Confusing or failing to recognize/remember people and places
  • Not taking care of oneself or one'due south home (east.g., eating poorly, not bathing, beingness dangerous)
  • Pregnant changes in logic and judgement
  • Difficulty communicating with others

Read: 10 Signs of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias

Although dementia primarily affects elderly individuals and is becoming increasingly mutual, it is non a normal part of the aging procedure. Even one of the cognitive issues higher up can accept serious real-world consequences, such as making information technology difficult for a senior to pay their bills on time, manage and attend appointments, continue a household in order, feed themselves, or socialize with family and friends.

Medical Conditions That Can Mimic Dementia

While memory loss is a common symptom of many kinds of dementia, changes in retentiveness solitary are non sufficient for a diagnosis. Doctors will diagnose an individual with dementia only if two or more than encephalon functions—such as memory and language skills—are significantly impaired. Some of the diseases that cause symptoms of dementia are Alzheimer'southward illness, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, Huntington'due south disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Doctors have identified other medical conditions that can cause dementia or dementia-similar symptoms, including reactions to medications, normal pressure hydrocephalus, metabolic problems and endocrine abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies, urinary tract infections (UTIs), brain tumors, anoxia or hypoxia (weather condition in which the brain'southward oxygen supply is either reduced or cut off entirely), and eye and lung issues. Fifty-fifty hospitalization and surgeries can cause changes in a senior's mental state, which may be temporary or permanent.

What to Do if Y'all Think Your Parent Has Dementia

Caregivers who are worried most their aging parents' cognitive health should ensure they make an appointment with a physician as soon equally possible for a thorough physical and mental health evaluation. This comprehensive checkup should include bloodwork and urine tests to rule out other causes of cognitive decline too equally a series of mental assessments to cheque their memory, problem solving skills, and math and linguistic communication skills. Diagnostic imaging may exist necessary too.

A consummate medical exam for memory loss should review a person's medical history, including their employ of prescription and over-the-counter medications, diet, by medical bug and general health. A correct diagnosis depends on accurate details. Sometimes dementia patients cannot recognize their impairment (a symptom called anosognosia), so the medico may asking additional information from a family member, caregiver or close friend.

Information technology is important to note that there is no single, definitive diagnostic test for dementia. Physicians similar neurologists, geriatricians and psychiatrists typically utilise a combination of tests and assessments to diagnose dementia.

Read: Medical Tests Used to Diagnose Alzheimer'due south Disease

If your elderly loved 1 is showing signs of dementia, it is important to schedule these tests and assessments immediately. Sometimes, this is easier said than done since many seniors turn down to go to the doctor. Those who practise attend appointments may somehow manage to put on a disarming performance for their physicians that all is well—a phenomenon called "showtiming." Fifty-fifty if a parent has non authorized the doctor to hash out your parent'southward care with y'all, you can still share your concerns with their medical provider in person, by email or past phone.

Although a dementia diagnosis might not be fabricated when symptoms initially nowadays, the results of these tests can be used as a baseline for comparison against the results of time to come testing. Establishing a cerebral baseline is important for anyone who is concerned almost their futurity cognitive health.

Planning for a Parent's Future

Early diagnosis is crucial for allowing dementia patients and their families to effectively set up legally, financially and medically. Ideally, most of these preparations and discussions will have taken place long before you doubtable changes in their mental state. If non, helping your parent spell out their wishes while they are all the same capable of participating is an important pace in planning for their future. Clarifying what is (or may be) happening to a parent's memory, judgement, moods and behaviors also makes it much easier for their loved ones to take these changes and come up together to create a care programme that accommodates them.

Read: Planning Ahead for Mom and Dad's Care