Many of us have a deep fear of dementia. We worry about being diagnosed with the condition ourselves or seeing a loved one succumb to the illness.
So, it is common to remain on the lookout for signs of the disease. Some signs are obvious — memory loss or getting lost while driving, for example.
However, there are also some unexpected early warning signs that also might indicate reason for concern. Here are some of them.
1. Depression
A recent large study published in General Psychiatry, a journal of the British Medical Association, found that people who go on to develop a type of dementia known as Lewy body dementia are diagnosed with depression more often in the years leading up to the dementia diagnosis.
The emotional toll of living with a chronic condition like depression could not explain the study findings because other long-term, disabling diseases are not associated with such a strong risk of depression. This led researchers to suspect that depression is linked to early degeneration — physical changes — in the brain.
2. Increased daytime sleepiness in older women
A five-year study involving 733 women with an average age of 83 found that increased daytime sleepiness is associated with double the risk of developing dementia, at least among older women.
Of the study participants who experienced an increase in daytime sleepiness during the five-year study period, 19% developed dementia during that time. Of the participants whose sleep was stable or improved slightly during the study period, 8% developed dementia.
Thus, study author Yue Leng — an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco — noted that sleep problems might be a risk factor or serve as an early indicator of dementia in older women.
3. Financial problems
It’s not surprising that someone who already has dementia might have financial problems. However, it is a bit startling to learn that money woes can creep up many years in advance of a diagnosis.
Research has found that people sometimes start missing credit card payments up to six years before they are diagnosed with dementia.
In addition, researchers have found evidence that you might be more likely to have a subprime credit score 30 months prior to being diagnosed with dementia.
For more, check out “2 Money Woes That Can Signal the Start of Dementia.”
4. Frequent nightmares in middle age
Frequent nightmares during middle age might presage a dementia diagnosis in the future, according to a study published in The Lancet journal eClinicalMedicine.
Such dreams may occur years — or even decades — in advance of the diagnosis. According to a summary of the research from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom:
“The research shows that middle-aged people (35-64) who experience bad dreams on a weekly basis are four times more likely to experience cognitive decline over the following decade, while older people were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia.”
The association was much stronger in men than women, according to the researchers.
5. A dull sense of smell
A declining sense of smell — a condition known as anosmia — might be an early signal that the brain is undergoing changes that might result in Alzheimer’s disease.
Brain scans of patients with anosmia often reveal a faster buildup of harmful proteins associated with Alzheimer’s. For more, read “Dull Sense of Smell May Be an Early Sign of Alzheimer’s.”
6. Breaking the law
Criminal behavior might be an early sign that dementia is taking hold in someone’s brain.
A 2015 study published in JAMA Neurology — a journal of the American Medical Association — found that criminal behavior was the first manifestation of dementia for as many as 14% of patients, depending on the type of dementia.
Specifically, this was the case for 14% of those with behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia, 7.8% of those with semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia and 2% of those with Alzheimer’s disease.
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