The disease usually begins insidiously, sometimes relatives do not notice symptoms until years after the actual onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Initially, changes occur that are considered typical of aging, such as forgetfulness. As the disease progresses, however, symptoms become more frequent and noticeable. These include disorientation, mood swings and states of confusion. The ability to care for and look after oneself is increasingly lost as the disease progresses, leaving sufferers dependent on intensive care and nursing.The following symptoms and complaints may indicate Alzheimer’s disease:
- Memory disorders (here already the subjectively perceived memory deterioration / memory impairment).
- Orientation disorders
- Restlessness
- Perseverations – linguistic pathological persistence with the same ideas, with the same thought content.
- Aphasia (central language disorder after largely completed language development) – leading symptom: word-finding disorders* (difficulty naming objects and the like).
- Agnosia – disorder of recognition not caused by dementia, aphasia or disorder of elementary perception.
- Apraxia – disturbance of actions or movements and inability to use objects in a meaningful way with preserved motility, motility, and perception
- Hyposmia* (decreased ability to smell); possibly also phantosmia (olfactory perception in the absence of an appropriate stimulus source (odorants)).
- Irritability
- Delusion
- Hallucinations
- Depression
- Personality changes
- Disturbances of the temporal sensation
- Disturbances of the day-night rhythm – sleep disturbances, daytime sleepiness / daytime fatigue.
- Mood swings
- Anorexia (loss of appetite)
- Weight loss
- Motor failures
* Early symptom; is a better predictor of cognitive decline than deficits in verbal episodic memory.
A committee assembled by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer’s Association (AA) in “Alzheimer’s and Dementia” is turning away from symptomatology and wants to use biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as decisive criteria in future research (see below Laboratory Diagnostics).
Further references
- Apparently, epileptic seizures can precede AD by several years: according to one study, patients with a seizure of unclear etiology (LOSU: late-onset seizure of unknown etiology) that first occurred and was provoked in old age had a nearly doubled risk of later AD.
- In patients with a genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease could be found increased problems with spatial navigation: for example, when you get up at night and want to find the way to the bathroom in the dark.
