When are memory problems serious?

We all forget things occasionally, but when do lapses in memory signify something more serious?

Basically, a memory problem is serious if it affects your daily living. Also, normal memory loss doesn't get worse over time. Memory loss caused by disease, such as Alzheimer's, gets progressively worse over months or years.

Alzheimer's disease starts by changing recent memory and progresses to the point where it affects all memory as well as the ability to learn and communicate.

Following are the ten common signs of dementia or Alzheimer's disease:

  1. Recent memory loss. People with dementia may repeatedly ask the same question, forgetting not only the answer, but the fact that they've already asked the question.
  2. Difficulty performing familiar tasks. People with Alzheimer's may have trouble doing something they've done all their life, like preparing a meal.
  3. Problems with language. Someone with Alzheimer's may forget words or substitute inappropriate words, making them difficult to understand.
  4. Disorientation to time and place. People with Alzheimer's can become lost on their own street, not knowing how they got there or how to get back home. They may not know or understand what day of the week it is.
  5. Poor or decreased judgment. Someone with Alzheimer's shows decreased judgment such as wearing a heavy, winter coat on a summer day or going out in cold weather in nothing but shorts and a t-shirt.
  6. Difficulty with abstract thinking. Alzheimer's makes it difficult for people to perform tasks such as balancing their checkbook or doing simple math problems.
  7. Misplacing things. Alzheimer's patients not only misplace things, they put things in appropriate places such as their wallet in the refrigerator or their car keys in the sugar bowl.
  8. Changes in mood. Alzheimer's can cause rapid and wide swings in mood - going from smiles to tears and back again for no apparent reason.
  9. Personality changes. Alzheimer's can cause dramatic changes in personality making a person withdraw, suspicious, fearful or irritable.
  10. Loss of initiative. A person with Alzheimer's may become very passive, refusing to do even the things they used to enjoy.

    11. Fulton Manor offers immediate admissions to its memory care centers. For more information, contact 616-643-2631.