Reader TTS

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF DEMENTIA Dementia is not the same as mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, an early stage of memory and cognitive loss not serious enough to impair a person’s daily

activities. Some people with MCI — 10 to 15 percent — will progress to full-blown dementia each year. Others will not. “Mild cognitive impairment means there is some evidence that your

thinking and memory are not as good as they should be, but not to the level where you can’t function independently,” Power says. “It’s true that people with MCI are more likely to develop

dementia in their lifetime. It’s also true that many will revert back to normal cognition or never progress to dementia.” shapecharge / Getty Images THE STATS * More than 55 million people 

globally live with dementia, a number expected to rise to about 139 million by 2050., according to the World Health Organization. * In the United States, an estimated 7.2 million Americans

have the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease. That number is projected to reach close to 14 million by 2060. * Early-onset Alzheimer’s is much less common, affecting about

200,000 Americans younger than 65, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. * Overall, women are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s than men. * Black and Hispanic

people are at greater risk for Alzheimer’s than white people. People with dementia, on the other hand, have progressed to a point where they can’t pay their bills, reliably take medications

or drive safely. Eventually, they will struggle to make a grocery list or work the TV remote. They may get lost in their own neighborhood and no longer recognize loved ones. They may

“remember” experiences they never had. They will stop being able to dress themselves or go to the toilet. With Alzheimer’s, people “have trouble remembering the answers to questions, so they

end up asking them again and again and again,” Budson says. “Other times, patients with Alzheimer’s can have false memories. For example, one of my patients watched a TV show about going

on a trip to Europe, then told her family she went on this wonderful trip to Europe. She thought it all happened to her.” Dementia in its various forms can impair judgment, affect mood and

personality, prompt odd behavior and distort how a person perceives what he or she sees. One of Schulz’s Alzheimer’s patients had trouble telling where objects are in space. “She is a math

professor who can still do all her equations.” She wrote them down, so she could consult them. But she can’t find her phone on the table, he says. “She can look at a doorknob but can’t tell

you which way the door will open.” Occasionally forgetting a name or misplacing a set of keys is normal as we age. The deficits associated with dementia are greater, and more devastating,

since they seriously affect how a person lives and functions. “Many fear dementia more than a cancer diagnosis,” says Christine Kistler, M.D., who specializes in geriatric medicine at the

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In a way, that’s understandable. “We’ve made remarkable advances in diagnosing and treating cancer, but there is nothing we can do to cure

dementia.”