Warning signs may include:
1. Difficulty performing familiar tasks. For example, this could include preparing a meal and not only forgetting to serve it, but also forgetting it was made.
2. Language problems. Forgetting simple words or substituting inappropriate ones; making sentences incomprehensible is cause for concern.
3. Recent memory loss that affects job skills, such as forgetting names, phone numbers and assignments, and not remembering them later.
4. Disorientation to time and place. Becoming lost in familiar surroundings and not knowing how to get home is a common problem during the course of Alzheimer’s disease.
5. Poor judgment, which may be shown outwardly by dressing inappropriately or completely forgetting about the task at hand.
6. Problems with abstract thinking. Not only having difficulty balancing a checkbook, but forgetting what the numbers are and what needs to be done with them is a telling symptom.
7. Misplacing things, including putting things in inappropriate places such as keys in the refrigerator or a hairbrush in the silverware drawer.
8. Changes in mood or behavior. Caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s disease may report rapid mood swings for no apparent reason.