Many of us get a little more forgetful as we get older. Most people will need a bit longer to remember things, get distracted more easily or struggle to multi-task as well as they once did. This may become noticeable particularly from middle age - usually taken as during our 40s, 50s and early 60s, and often people confuse this normal part of growing older with the early symptoms of dementia.
Almost 40 per cent of people over the age of 65 experience some form of memory loss. When there is no underlying medical condition causing this memory loss, it is known as "age-associated memory impairment," which is considered a part of the normal aging process.
For a doctor to diagnose dementia, a person's symptoms must have become bad enough to significantly affect their daily life, not just be an occasional minor irritation. This means having new problems with everyday activities about the house, in the community or at work. For example, starting to have problems paying household bills, using the phone, managing medicines, driving safely or meeting up with friends.
The table below lists some of the possible changes due to both normal ageing and early dementia. However, it is important to remember that everyone is different and not everyone with dementia will have all of these changes. Other conditions may also account for some of them. For example, a person with depression can have problems making decisions, get confused easily and appear withdrawn or irritable.
It is important not to assume that any of these signs mean that a person has dementia and you should always seek advice from a medical professional if you have any concerns.
The table shows changes for the most common types of dementia: Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and mixed dementia (which is usually a combination of both of these). Less common types of dementia that we will discuss in the next sections, may lead to early changes that are not shown in the table. These changes could be: visual hallucinations (seeing things that are not really there) or very disturbed sleep, in dementia with Lewy bodies; changes in personality or behaviour, in frontotemporal dementia. These changes are usually more immediately noticeable and medical advice should again be sought as soon as possible.
