People with symptoms of dementia should seek treatment as early as possible to arrest any decline in their condition, the Taiwan Alzheimer's Disease Association urged yesterday.
"It is important that people can recognize the early signs of dementia, and seek treatment at an early stage to stop their condition from deteriorating quickly," said Tang Li-yu (湯麗玉), the association's secretary-general.
Tang said the early symptoms of dementia included loss of memory, an increasing inability to undertake familiar tasks, fragmented language, loss of concept of time and place, declining alacrity, difficulty in processing abstract thought, misplacing items around the house, sudden changes in attitudes, emotions and character, and loss of interest in activity.
"Very often the families of patients do not recognize these signs and think these abnormal behaviors are just a phase of aging," Tang said.
"Then, after two or three years, when patients deteriorate to the point that they cannot find their way home, only then will families realize what is happening, but by then it would be too late. There is no way that patients can be rehabilitated even if they undergo treatment."
The association yesterday also invited an Australian with dementia, Christine Bryden, to give a speech on the disease and the general symptoms and conditions faced by people with dementia.
Bryden, 59, used to be a high-level executive in the Australian government, but resigned after she was diagnosed with dementia in the late 1990s.
She said that the disease was usually stigmatized and people were afraid to admit to their condition if they were found to have the disease. Sometimes they would even refuse to seek treatment and struggle on alone instead.
She called on the society to help destigmatize the disease and urged people affected to seek help as early as possible.
"Treatment delayed is treatment denied," Bryden said.
Bryden said that a person with the condition would feel foggy, suffer from a crisis of identity, and struggle hard to complete daily chores. But she cautioned against carers doing everything on behalf of dementia sufferers, because preventing them from carrying on with routine tasks could only worsen the condition.
Dr Liu Hsiu-chih (
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