“Most people think of Alzheimer’s as primarily a memory disorder, but we do know… that it also can start as a behavioral issue”, says the director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Centers program at the National Institute on Aging, who wasn’t involved in developing the checklist, but advocates it.
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Losing interest in favourite activities? The patients suffering from dementia can become confused, suspicious, depressed, fearful or anxious. Suddenly making crude comments in public?
According to a report in NY Times by PAM BELLUCK, “If the answer is yes to one of these questions – or others on a new checklist – and the personality or behavior change has lasted for months, it could indicate a very early stage of dementia, according to a group of neuropsychiatrists and Alzheimer’s experts”.
Now, “when it comes to early detection, memory symptoms don’t have the corner on the market anymore”, he said. Memory and reasoning training were found not to have any significant effect on dementia risk. “Further work is needed to see whether thinning of the retinal nerve fibre layer is predictive of cognitive decline and dementia”. While the amount of brain amyloid present, but not odour identification, predicted memory decline, those with an impaired sense of smell were three times more likely to have memory problems.
Researchers found that five categories of symptoms often precede memory loss in Alzheimer’s: apathy; mood; impulse control; social appropriateness and perception.
In some cases, a minor change in a person’s surroundings can help.
“It’s important for us to recognize that not everything’s forgetfulness”, said Dr. Ron Petersen, the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s research chief. However, these methods are expensive and invasive, and are only able to detect Alzheimer’s later in its development, researchers argued in a news release detailing the studies’ findings.
Technology specialist Mike Belleville of Douglas, Massachusetts, thought stress was to blame when he found himself getting easily frustrated and angry.
That’s particularly true if you have a job requiring complex social interactions, as opposed to working on your own analyzing data or working complicated apparatus, said lead researcher Elizabeth Boots. When Mike Belleville didn’t remember the strong words the next morning, the two headed straight for a doctor.
As the number of people being diagnosed with a form dementia increases, so too does the emphasis on living well with the condition. Despite bold marketing claims, “compelling evidence of general and enduring positive effects on the way people’s minds and brains age has remained elusive”, they wrote in a December 2014 consensus statement.
The subjects underwent brain training in an initial series of ten group sessions, with a smaller group also receiving four-session booster trainings at one and three years after enrolment.
“We believe this is the first time a cognitive training intervention has been shown to protect against cognitive impairment or dementia in a large, randomized, controlled trial”, said Dr. Jerry Edwards, an associate professor at the University of South Florida and first author of the scientific abstract. This was especially true for those who got 10 sessions to improve reasoning strategies.
During the decade-long follow up period, the ones who received the commercially assessable brain training exercises had 33% less risk of suffering from the neurodegenerative disease during the 10 years in comparison to those who didn’t receive any brain training at all. There are many different types, but the most common, and the most well-known, is Alzheimer’s Disease.
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