One concern that you might face as your loved ones like your parents grow older is that they might develop some form of dementia. Dementia, like Alzheimer’s disease, is a terrible illness that slowly takes away your loved one’s memories and ability to perform basic skills. When your loved ones suffer from dementia, you might need to take them to a long term care facility in near me or wherever you live, so they can get help for their illness. However, it can be hard to tell the signs at times because the symptoms of dementia and the regular forgetfulness that comes with old age look very similar. Before you contact a rehab facility, or other long term care facilities, check out this article that looks at 3 ways to tel the difference between the symptoms of dementia and regular forgetfulness in your loved ones.
- Forgetting to Perform Tasks: One way to tell if it’s dementia or normal forgetfulness is to observe if your loved one is forgetting to perform basic tasks. For example, if your loved one forgets to pay a bill one month (but remembers the next month), or forgets one time to wash the dishes or do the laundry, then it is likely just regular forgetfulness. The key is to see if these are isolated incidents, because incidents like this can happen to anyone as they grow older. However, if you see your loved one forgetting to clean the home, pay any bills, and dishes are piling up in the sink on a constant basis (and this wasn’t their habit before), it could be a possible sign that dementia is forming and you might want to think about contacting a long term care facility in near me or wherever you live.
- Losing Track of Time: Another way to tell the difference is to observe whether or not your loved one is losing track of time. For example, if your loved one forgets what day or time it is, only to remember later in the day, it is likely a sign of regular forgetfulness. However, if your loved one is losing complete track of time, including time of day, and time of year including what season it is, that could be a sign of a serious problem forming.
- Forgetting Names: A third way to tell the difference is to see whether or or not your loved one is forgetting names. Now, occasional forgetfulness is to be expected, especially in old age. As the brain ages, it’s normal for recall of some names to fall through the cracks. However, if it’s just normal forgetfulness, a prompt should eventually restore access to that memory. But watch carefully, if your loved one has completely forgotten the name of someone they should know, and no prompting in the world brings that memory back, then you should probably consider consulting a long term care facility in near me or wherever you live and ask for some help because your loved one might be suffering from the onset of dementia.
In conclusion, there are several ways you can tell the difference between dementia and regular forgetfulness. These ways can include whether your loved one forgets to perform tasks occasionally or on a constant basis. You can also see if they lose track of time temporarily or all of the time. And also, you can see if your loved one is forgetting names once in a while or all the time, with memory prompts failing to bring the name to mind. Basically, if these things are happening all the time and prompts are failing to recall the memory, that’s how you can tell it might be dementia and not just regular forgetfulness. These are all important things to keep in mind when contemplating if you need to contact a long term care facility in near me or wherever you live.