Dementia is not all about memory loss. The condition comes with a host of symptoms, from trouble finding words to loss of taste. Neither is memory loss the only early sign that something may be amiss. Dementia drops a number of hints on its way in.
American writer and psychotherapist Amy Bloom describes in her memoir In Love – about her husband’s early-onset dementia – the earliest, almost unseen signs that all was not well.
Her husband grew confused over the communications he received regarding a book club he loved going to. She would hear him complaining about all the emails that came in and the schedule changes. He went to meetings on the wrong night and forgot where meetings were on others.
Bloom was shocked some time later to find a message on her husband’s phone – by then she had taken to checking it – from a man who her husband swore had moved away and was no longer in the book club. But he was.
Looking back, I can recall little indications that all was not well in my mother’s brain as dementia began to set in, too. She forgot words, but slid the wrong word in for the right one with such ease you almost did not notice.