This episode is an important conversation about the physical signs of dementia that families often miss. Dementia is diagnosed when cognitive changes begin to interfere with daily function , and recognizing early warning signs can make a meaningful difference.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. Trouble walking and maintaining balance
2. Posture changes and shuffling feet
3. Changes in taste and smell
4. Swallowing difficulties
5. Bladder control issues
6. Sleep disturbances such as acting out dreams

We also highlight why early detection matters. A timely diagnosis allows families to explore treatment options, plan ahead, and make important care decisions while their loved one can still participate . Providing practical education and compassionate guidance for caregivers and families.

Have a look at our updated website - https://www.mindingdementiasummit.com/

About the Host:

Author Lisa Skinner is a behavioral specialist with expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. In her 30+year career working with family members and caregivers, Lisa has taught them how to successfully navigate the many challenges that accompany this heartbreaking disease. Lisa is both a Certified Dementia Practitioner and is also a certified dementia care trainer through the Alzheimer’s Association. She also holds a degree in Human Behavior.

Her latest book, “Truth, Lies & Alzheimer’s – Its Secret Faces” continues Lisa’s quest of working with dementia-related illnesses and teaching families and caregivers how to better understand the daunting challenges of brain disease. Her #1 Best-seller book “Not All Who Wander Need Be Lost,” was written at their urging. As someone who has had eight family members diagnosed with dementia, Lisa Skinner has found her calling in helping others through the struggle so they can have a better-quality relationship with their loved ones through education and through her workshops on counter-intuitive solutions and tools to help people effectively manage the symptoms of brain disease. Lisa Skinner has appeared on many national and regional media broadcasts. Lisa helps explain behaviors caused by dementia, encourages those who feel burdened, and gives practical advice for how to respond.

So many people today are heavily impacted by Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. The Alzheimer's Association and the World Health Organization have projected that the number of people who will develop Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050 worldwide will triple if a treatment or cure is not found. Society is not prepared to care for the projected increase of people who will develop this devastating disease. In her 30 years of working with family members and caregivers who suffer from dementia, Lisa has recognized how little people really understand the complexities of what living with this disease is really like. For Lisa, it starts with knowledge, education, and training.

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Welcome back everybody to the truth lies and

Alzheimer's show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host, and I bet

that a lot of you out there are not even aware that there are

common physical signs of dementia. So this is what I'm

sharing with you today, because I want you to be aware that

there are physical signs of dementia in addition to

cognitive symptoms, science behaviors, etc, etc. So I

thought this would be a really fun thing to share, because I

know a lot of people are not aware that sometimes people

suffer from physical imperities as well as cognitive

imperatives. So this comes from an article written in Huffington

Post, life, getting older comes with many changes. We all know

that right, unfortunately, not the least of which are

occasional memory lapses, which tend to worry many people in the

moment. This is true, these cognitive changes can be totally

normal, so there is no need to panic. If you occasionally

forget that the your sunglasses are on top of your head, or you

forget the name of your son's former teacher. We call this

normal aging forgetfulness, and we've done episodes on that

before, but there is a clear difference between age related

cognitive changes and full blown dementia. Now, if you remember,

roughly 7 million people in America are living with

Alzheimer's disease and related dementia, and it's expected that

the number is going to nearly triple by the year 2050 and if

we do the math on that, that's only 24 short years away, and

that's according To The World Health Organization and the

Alzheimer's Association, experts are telling us that cognitive

impairment becomes something more severe at a certain point,

the magic line that transitions someone from mild cognitive

impairment to dementia is when one of their cognitive

impairments is impairing their function ability, so it's

impacting their day to day lives. For me, that is one of

the key parts of defining when someone has transitioned to

dementia, and that's a quote by Dr Stephanie nussel, who's a

geriatrician and an associate professor at Johns Hopkins

School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. This could mean no

longer being able to use a car, for example, getting lost while

driving a familiar route or not being able to do one's taxes

after decades of doing them. And this is another quote by Dr

Nobel, if cognitive changes make it tough to get through a normal

day. She says, that's a red flag, just to kind of reiterate,

dementia is used as an umbrella term that describes multiple

forms of cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer's disease,

which is the most common form of dementia, there are over 100

known brain diseases that cause similar symptoms that we put in

The category of dementia, like vascular dementia and

Parkinson's disease. The exact manifestations of the disease

depend on the actual diagnosis, and while cognitive impairment

is common thread, there are also some physical symptoms that tend

to be associated with dementia. So here's what they are. The

first one is if you notice trouble walking and balancing,

and Dr nathel tells us that she finds that a lot of the more

physical manifestations happen later in the course. Course of

dementia, but there is a physical issue that occurs

earlier on and gets worse throughout the course of the

disease, and that's somebody's ability to walk and maintain

their balance. She continues the ability to maintain your balance

and walk smoothly. Actually, it requires a lot of brain power. I

find this really fascinating. It requires a lot of brain power

because you have to process a lot of different inputs. You

have to process sensations from your feet. You have to process

what your eyes are seeing in the environment around you, and

more, you have to quickly react to these things. And so it's a

very strong cognitive task, to be able to walk because of all

this trouble walking, trouble balancing and falling

frequently, is a sign of dementia. But note that these

issues aren't only a sign of the disease. They can be due to

having arthritis or even your own clumsiness. Number two is

posture changes and feet shuffling. That actually is a

very common sign of dementia. The second most common form of

dementia is Lewy body dementia, and this is according to Dr Jory

Fleischer, who's an associate professor of neurological

Sciences at Rush University in Chicago, this describes a few

types of dementia, including Parkinson's disease. We see this

a lot in people living with Parkinson's disease is that

shuffling effect. In this manifestation, you may notice

posture changes, also feet shuffling, or that someone is

walking slower than they used to. Dr Fleischer said, while

it's easier to chalk these issues up to getting older, not

paying attention having arthritis, and if we're seeing a

pattern of that, we want to pay attention to it. She added

number three, is having changes in your sense of taste and

smell. I have read some updated information, oh, probably the

last few months. And I shared this with you all on one of the

episodes that it's coming out that a lot of people who have

been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, slash dementia, one of the early

symptoms that they noticed that they didn't think about at the

time was a change in their sense of taste and smell. Well, here

it is, a change in your sense of taste or smell can be attributed

to many issues, such as a covid, 19 infection, or a history of

sinus problems, but outside of known factors, unexplained

changes in these senses can also be related to dementia. Dr

Fleischer explains, sometimes the person doesn't notice it

themselves, but their loved one is going, hey, something on the

stove was burning and you didn't smell that. That's an example.

This is a symptom that should push someone to see their

physician. While it may not be a sign of all forms of dementia,

it is definitely associated with Lewy body dementia, according to

Dr Fleischer,

number four is having problems swallowing. People with dementia

may also experience trouble swallowing food and drinks. So

what Dr nafell tells us is that people can be eating or

drinking, and things will have a tendency to accidentally go down

the wrong pipe. In other words, the food actually ends up going

into our lungs versus going into our stomachs, and that is not

supposed to happen. Now, saliva helps us swallow food and

drinks, and our mouths are full of bacteria. She said, while

some of the bacteria is good bacteria, some of it is not so

good. Um. Um, like bacteria that comes from cavities in our mouth

and gum disease. And if that bad bacteria ends up in your lungs

with your food, it can set you up for infection. We call that

aspiration pneumonia, and that is the very reason why pneumonia

is relatively common in the latter part of dementia, says Dr

Neufeld, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is

also one of the most common means of end of life for people

living with dementia. I want to tell you that my mother passed

away from aspiration pneumonia. She kept she had a feeding tube.

She couldn't swallow at all, and even though she had a feeding

tube, and we fed her formula through that feeding tube that

was attached directly to her stomach, just from her

swallowing her own saliva. It went into her lungs, and the

bacteria became infected, and the doctor told us that the more

she developed aspiration pneumonia, the more resistant it

would come become to antibiotics. And eventually the

antibiotics would become 100% resistant to the bacterial

infection that developed in the lungs, and there would be, you

know, no recourse. And sadly, that's exactly what happened the

last time she developed aspiration pneumonia. That was

it so. But, you know, it's, it's funny, she did not have

dementia. She was like, perfectly sound. What she had

had was multiple, multiple strokes, and that was the reason

why she no longer was able to swallow anything. So number five

is having bladder control issues or incontinence, which it's also

known as and unfortunately, can be a symptom of dementia. Now,

the explanation for that is that a lot of nerves are required for

bladder control, and those nerves degenerate as dementia

progresses. Similarly, folks may experience new constipation

later in life, according to Dr Fleischer, which can also be a

sign of Parkinson's and other related conditions and often

precedes the other symptoms by years, And number six is sleep

changes. So according to Dr Fleischer, sleep changes are

also important to look out for in people living with dementia.

The person experiencing sleep changes may not notice, but if

you live with someone and find they're moving around a lot at

night, punching at things, shouting or talking in their

sleep. It's very important to let their health care team know

that may be something called R, E, M behavior disorder, which

often can come years before a person has Parkinson's or Lewy

body dementia, she adds, and I'm going to continue with an early

diagnosis can be a powerful way to prepare for the future. It

can certainly be hard to admit to any health problems or

changes, especially when it comes to cognition, but it's

important that we do so we are living in a time of innovation

when it comes to dementia treatments, and this is

something that Dr Fleischer is emphasizing to all of us.

There's lots of different research going on right now to

try to find treatments and pharmaceutical options for

people. Doctors can check biomarkers in blood and or

spinal fluid to determine what kind of dementia someone has,

and then be able to make treatment recommendations and

decisions based on that. So no matter what, it's best to start

treatments or interventions the earlier the as possible, as

early as possible on the course of these diseases. Now that is

something that. But both Dr nathel and Dr Fleischer want

everybody to be clear about the treatments now are not a cure,

but we know now that they can help with disease management and

early diagnosis can also help families and individuals best

prepare for the progression of this lung disease. They say

finding out early on can be really helpful for a lot of

different reasons, including planning and just having a say

in a person's future. If you find out early, you often can

still make some decisions, whether that's your care,

whether you'll live where I'm sorry, where you'll live, and

also on your financial choices. And this all makes it important

to pay attention to any signs of dementia, either in yourself or

noticing it in a loved one, and then reach out to a physician if

you notice concerning changes it is starting to impact Your daily

living habits. So as scary as we know that this is a diagnosis,

and knowledge in early detection gives you power, according to Dr

Fleischer, and I agree with that statement 100% so whether you

have any of the symptoms above or not, there are things you can

do to reduce your dementia risk or slow down the disease

prevention. These include all of the things that go into a

healthy lifestyle. Both experts recommend that to lower your

chance of dementia, it's helpful to follow a nutritious diet.

Both these doctors recommend the mind diet that's m, I n, d, to

exercise, to socialize with loved ones and manage chronic

conditions like diabetes and sleep apnea experts predict that

42% of Americans over 55 will develop dementia in their

lifetime. But there are things we now know you can do to

prepare for the disease if you get a diagnosis, and things you

can do to help minimize and even lower your risk. So that is the

episode today for the truth lies in Alzheimer's show. I'm Lisa

Skinner, your host, as always, I will be back next week with a

brand new episode for you, and the citation for the information

I presented to you today will be in the show notes for you if you

want to refer to it. And as always, I hope you all have a

fantastic rest of your week that you stay happy and healthy and

until then. Au revoir for now.