Sept. 1, 2010 —  Are you seeing changes in an older family member’s ability to cope with daily life? Dementia is more than memory loss. Dementia is defined as a permanent decline of a person’s ability to reason and manage his own life. While the rate of dementia increases with age, disruptions in memory and the ability to complete daily tasks are not a normal consequence of aging.

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When facing concerns about memory loss, it’s helpful to know how our brains change as we age and contrast those changes with the symptoms of dementia.

An aging brain has certain characteristics:

• Slower at retrieving information. We’ve all experienced those “tip of the tongue” moments where we can’t remember someone’s name.

• Slower to learn new information. Studies have shown that older people learn new tasks as well as younger people, putting the lie to the old saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Older learners do need more time to learn new tasks, more repetition and an environment that allows them to focus.

• More difficulty filtering out distractions. An audiologist I know has had a number of boomers come in, complaining of hearing loss. However, when tested, they were found to not have hearing loss. Rather, distracting environments make it difficult for their aging brains to focus on a speaker and filter out distractions to hear what he is saying.

Now let’s contrast normal brain aging with dementia:

• Dementia sufferers cannot retrieve certain types of information because the brain cells that held that knowledge have died. As dementia progresses it is common for people to lose their vocabulary and have difficulty with everyday tasks like cooking or balancing a checkbook.

• Dementia sufferers have great difficulty learning new things, or cannot learn them at all. Short-term memory is affected. Your family member can’t remember recent events, forgets conversations and tells repetitive stories.

• Distracting, busy environments become very stressful for your family member with dementia. He becomes silent and withdrawn or upset in social situations because he can’t keep up with the conversation.

Other dementia symptoms you may notice:

• Issues with personal hygiene, refusing to bathe; wearing the same clothes.

• Objects stored in strange places, milk in the closet; flashlight in the fridge.

• Problems managing medications, not taking on them on time or taking too much.

• Loss of interest in hobbies and activities that the person used to enjoy.

• Increased confusion or agitation at the end of the day.

If you see these signs in your family member, it’s important for him to be evaluated by his doctor. There are treatable illnesses with the same symptoms as a dementia. Depression, thyroid problems, vitamin B-12 deficiency and overmedication or drug interactions are just a few conditions that can look like the onset of dementia. When other causes have been ruled out, an in-depth memory assessment can be carried out at a memory clinic associated with a local teaching hospital. In the Bay Area, UCSF and Stanford have outstanding memory clinics.

Early diagnosis of a dementia gives you and your family member time to plan for the future when his need for support will likely increase. You also have the opportunity to create some new family memories by planning some special activities. Depending on the type of dementia your family member has there may be drug therapies to enhance his quality of life and independence.

Janice Wallace, The Eldercare Coach, helps families take the best care possible of aging family members by providing trusted resources, education, planning and support. Download a free five-part report on common mistakes families caring for an elderly family member make and how to avoid them at www.Understanding-Dementia.com.