Dementia is a cognitive disease that causes degeneration in cognitive function, such as the ability to process thought. Dementia affects memory, understanding, orientation, learning ability, judgment and decision making, calculation, and language. The deterioration of cognitive function caused by dementia is severe enough to hinder normal day-to-day activities.

The leading cause of progressive dementia in older adults is Alzheimer’s disease. Other causes of dementia are frontotemporal dementia, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, Huntington’s disease, and mixed dementia. Dementia tends to get worse gradually, so here are a few early signs of dementia:

1. Memory Loss
When someone begins to have difficulties recalling information, especially recent events or information they have recently learned, this could indicate the onset of dementia. They will often rely on memory aids, friends, and family to help them remember things or keep track of things. Nevertheless, not all loss of memory is a symptom of dementia, as people forget things regularly as they age and usually will remember them later. Prevagen supplement for memory can boost a patient’s memory and slow down loss of memory.

2. Problem solving difficulties
When someone starts finding it increasingly challenging to follow simple instructions like following directions while driving or following a recipe, it could indicate a more significant problem. People with dementia will experience difficulties with problem-solving such as simple arithmetic used in day-to-day life like budgeting, time management, balancing their checkbook, and paying bills.

3. Confusion about time and place
People who have dementia will easily lose track of time and often forget where they are. They will struggle to understand events in the past or future, confuse day and night, and even have difficulties telling months and seasons apart. The part of the brain used to tell time begins to deteriorate at the onset of dementia and ultimately stops functioning.

4. Challenges understanding visual information
The ability to interpret and understand what we see around is called visuospatial ability. A person with dementia will have difficulties recognizing faces and locating objects in plain sight, driving, reading, judging distances and depth, making them often fall, telling colors apart. They may also wander a lot, even in familiar places.

5. Speech issues
A Person with dementia will struggle to engage in conversations because it affects how they create and process language. This is because they will typically forget what they intended to say or have trouble remembering what was said to them. Their punctuation, spelling, and grammar will also deteriorate as their dementia progresses, causing them to have difficulty reading and writing.

6. Misplacing personal items
Dementia patients will increasingly begin to forget where they place everyday items like keys, the remote, documents, and even cash. They often become easily frustrated due to their inability to retrace their steps to find their presumed missing things and accuse people of theft. Dementia heightens paranoia in patients, and this causes them to start putting their things in unusual spots to keep them safe.

7. Poor judgement
When a logical person who analyzes situations critically to make informed choices suddenly begins to present poor judgement, like easily falling for scams, it is a major red flag for the early stages of dementia. It can also affect their grooming, and they stop paying attention to their appearance and hygiene.