How Memory Loss Affects Daily Activities for Alzheimer’s Patients
One of the most commonly known symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease is memory loss. While most people are aware that it is a symptom that almost all Alzheimer’s patients have, they might be aware of how much memory plays into everyday living and how losing it can affect just about every aspect of a person’s day.
Why Memory is Affected by Alzheimer’s Disease
When a person has Alzheimer’s disease, the area of the brain that is damaged early on is the hippocampus and the surrounding areas. The hippocampus is responsible for retrieving memories but with Alzheimer’s disease, a person is no longer able to make new memories so the hippocampus cannot work as it should. Your loved one may remember her childhood home but she can’t make a new memory of who stopped by yesterday for lunch.
Memory problems will become more persistent and eventually begin to affect almost every aspect of your loved one’s daily life. This can be difficult to cope with, both for the person themselves and for the people around them.
What Memory Loss May Look Like for Your Loved One
Forgetting Upcoming Events
Your loved one may struggle to remember when important birthdays or holidays are or when she has an appointment on her calendar.
Forgetting Names and Words
While forgetting some exact words for items rarely talked about or names of people she hardly sees is common for just about everyone, forgetting the name of a neighbor that she’s been friends with for decades or forgetting the word for a banana, will occur as the disease progresses.
Forgetting Conversations or Recent Events
As those new memories cease to be created, your loved one may have no memory that her grandchild visited yesterday and that they played UNO all afternoon. She might also start telling you the same thing repeatedly as she loses the memory that she has already told you that bit of information.
Getting Lost While Away from Home and in the Home
At first, your loved one may forget how to get home from the store as her memory is affected. As the disease progresses, she might even begin to struggle to find rooms in the home.
Forgetting How to Perform Certain Tasks
Many of our daily tasks are rooted in memories, so when those memories are lost, your loved one can forget how to do activities she never gave a second thought to before.
Memory Activities For Alzheimer’s Patients
You can continue to help your loved one with memory issues so that she can maneuver safely through her day with some help from others. You might try playing games that work on memory (such as trivia or a matching game), or you might make a point to continually review who important people are in her life by looking at photos and connecting the memories with the person.
An Alzheimer’s home care provider can be a great resource when you are searching for someone to help with memory activities. An Alzheimer’s home care provider can play games with your loved one to keep her brain active and limber or the Alzheimer’s care provider can have your loved one show her photo albums and talk about the people in those albums. It can be a great support to a caregiver who has so much to balance as she cares for her elderly loved one with Alzheimer’s disease.