CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS

Symptoms usually become apparent in the late 60s of a person’s life with memory problems typically being one of the first signs of cognitive impairment related to Alzheimer’s; however, this is different from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) when you forget appointments or often lose things more than others at your age because Alzheimer’s interferes with person’s daily life and causes personality changes. It also causes a decline in nonmemory aspects of cognition, such as word-finding, vision/spatial issues, and impaired reasoning or judgment (Alzheimer’s Association, 2022).

At the moderate stage, people will have a problem detecting smell, learning new things, coping with new situations and confusion grow worse when they have problem recognizing family and friends. Ultimately, plaque and tangles spread throughout the brain and brain tissue shrink significantly when people cannot communicate and become completely dependent on others for their care (National Institute of Aging, 2021).