It’s estimated that more than 10 million senior citizens require some level of help in their daily living, ranging from simple chores to more complex caretaking. Many of these people will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, but for others, difficulties arise from the typical age-related changes many of us will face eventually. Understanding which is the case for your loved one is the first step to deciding which services will benefit your aging family member most.
One sign of Alzheimer’s disease is poor judgment and decision making, for example, giving large sums of money to telemarketers. On the other hand, a typical age-related change involves making a bad decision once in a while.
The inability to manage a budget after years of doing so may signal Alzheimer’s, especially when bills are repeatedly unpaid or the person has no knowledge of his checkbook balance. Missing a monthly payment occasionally is more closely associated with typical aging.
People with Alzheimer’s can lose track of dates, seasons and the passage of time, or may forget where they are or how they got there. On the other hand, many of us will forget what day it is occasionally, but we figure it out later and don’t usually experience the confusion someone with Alzheimer’s may.
While many elderly (and some not so elderly) will have trouble finding the right word at times, people with Alzheimer’s may have trouble following or joining a conversation. They may stop in the middle of a sentence and have no idea how to continue. They may struggle with vocabulary, have problems finding the right word, or call things by the wrong name.
People with Alzheimer’s may put things in unusual places or lose things and be unable to go back over their steps to find them again. This happens with increasing frequency and involves much more than simply misplacing the television remote once in a while, which is more typical of common aging.
