According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s disease is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States and every 65 seconds someone develops the disease.
They’ve created a helpful infographic with “10 Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease”, so you and your team can identify the symptoms to begin treatment for those in your care as early as possible.
Did you know that more than 16 million Americans provide unpaid care for those with some form of dementia? Until more effective treatments or a cure is found, these facts show that the demand for quality paid and unpaid caregivers will continue to increase quickly in the years to come. In order to provide the care needed, its important for all caregivers to be able to identify and understand the signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Here are the top 5 as a start, but be sure to download the “10 Signs of Alzheimer’s” infographic and post it in your care stations for a quick reminder of what to look for.
The most common early signs of Alzheimer’s disease:
1. Forgetting Recently Learned Information
- Forgetting important dates or events
- Asking for the same information over and over
- Relying more on memory aides, like notes, electronic reminders or family members for things that they handled on their own before
2. Challenges in Planning or Problem Solving
- Decreased ability to develop and follow a plan
- Trouble working with numbers
- Difficulty following a recipe
- Unable to keep track of monthly bills
- Hard time concentrating
- Taking longer to do things than they did before
3. Difficulty Completing Familiar Tasks
- Driving to a familiar location
- Managing a budget at work
- Remembering the rules of a favorite game
4. Confusion with Time or Place
- Losing track of time, dates, seasons
- Hard to grasp the passage of time
- Difficulties if something isn’t happening immediately
- Forgetting where they are or how they got there
5. Trouble Understanding Visual Images and Spatial Relationships
- Difficulty reading
- Trouble determining color or contrast
- Issues with judging distance
- Passing a mirror and thinking someone else is in the room, because they don’t recognize the reflection as their own
Review the infographic below for 5 more signs of Alzheimer’s disease to watch for.
You may also want to consider adding AL Advantage Assisted Living software in your senior care community, to improve all aspects of resident care, security and record keeping. It’s the software designed by senior care experts for caregiver success.
The infographic below would be a perfect poster to hang up in your Assisted Living and Memory Care Nurses’ Stations, as a reminder to your team, friends and family about the early signs to watch for.
To save the infographic on a Computer:
- Click on the image to open it in a new tab
- Right-click on the image and choose “Save image as…”
- A window will pop up with a list of all the folders on your computer.
- Select the folder where you would like to store the infographic image, then click the “Save” button
- Now the image is stored on your computer and can be printed from there or emailed to a local printer for printing on heavier paper or other material.
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