Dayna Ritchey - 10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer's

In this episode, we delve into the 10 warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease, providing listeners with vital insights to recognize early symptoms in themselves or their loved ones. From memory lapses to changes in mood or behavior, we break down each sign with clarity and compassion. Join us as we highlight the importance of early detection, share expert advice, and offer hope through resources and support. Whether you’re seeking knowledge, reassurance, or ways to help, this episode sheds light on a condition that touches millions. Tune in to empower yourself with the tools to face Alzheimer's proactively.

Learn more at https://www.alz.org/cincinnati or call our 24/7 Helpline at 800-272-3900.

Transcript

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Amy Frederick: 0:14

Today we continue our series on Alzheimer's with Dana Ritchie, program director with the Alzheimer's Association of the Greater Cincinnati and Miami Valley chapters. I'm Amy Frederick and I'm joined with my co-host, Connie Geller.

Connie Gaylor: 0:26

Welcome back, Dana, and thank you for coming back to discuss with us the ten warning signs of Alzheimer's or another dementia.

Amy Frederick: 0:33

Dana, before we get into the signs, should we only be concerned if we're seeing all ten signs? Does seeing a sign mean we definitely have a dementia? Just prepare us a bit for what we're going to hear.

Dayna Ritchey: 0:45

Well, thank you guys for having me back. And thank you, Amy, for those questions, because I do want to make it super clear when we talk about the ten warning signs, um, that I'm not here to diagnose anyone. And it's very important that everyone understands that there are some things we're more susceptible to experiencing as we age that can look a lot like these exact same signs, but they're treatable diseases. For example, things like dehydration, urinary tract infection, thyroid disease, vitamin deficiencies they can all present in a way that looks exactly like one of these warning signs. But if you had something like that, you would go to a physician. And that's part of what we talk about here, right, with stamping out the stigma, we want to make sure that people know that they need to go to their doctor. And so, you know, even if you're just concerned about one of these signs in yourself or in others, you should definitely go talk to your doctor about it. You never know, it might actually be something that's treatable. And you won't know that unless you talk to your physician.

Connie Gaylor: 2:04

Right. Um, when we when we think about smashing the stigma, there is a stigma around having a cognitive issue like dementia. So people a lot of times won't go to the doctor for fear about talking about their concerns for fear they'll be diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. But like you said, your symptoms can be something treatable. Um, just like if we think we have a cold, we're going to go to the doctor because we know that that can be treated. Um, and you just won't know until you go and actually talk to your doctor about it.

Dayna Ritchey: 2:37

Yeah. I mean, I'm, I am a glass half full person, but I don't want to be a Pollyanna here. I usually compare it to finding a lump. You know, if you found a lump somewhere in your body one day in the shower, you don't know if you you know what that lump is. But you do know you don't want cancer, so you're not going to go to the doctor because you don't want to be told you have cancer. Um, so the big question is, do you have cancer or not? We're never really going to know, right? It could be you have a lump that you stick a needle in, you aspirate it, it disappears in a week or so. But if you don't talk to your physician, we really don't know that people tend to talk to their doctor about lumps or things of that nature, because there are more treatment options for a disease with very few. We just get stuck in that stigma and won't talk about it, but just that realization that it could be something normal that's treatable. That's a good reason. One of the good reasons to talk to your doctor.

Amy Frederick: 3:41

Okay, Dana, let's first start with the ten warning signs. Can you lead us through these and maybe give us an example of a typical age related change?

Dayna Ritchey: 3:49

Yes. So one of the most common signs is memory loss. And you have to always listen to the whole sign here or you'll get you'll jump off the deep end too soon. So we're talking about memory loss That's disrupting your daily life, right? So I talked before about, you know, people will stop me when they see my Alzheimer's Association shirt and say, oh, gosh, I, I had a hard time finding my car at Kroger yesterday. You know, should I be concerned about that kind of memory loss? And I usually joke about, you know, well, we're not still at Kroger, so I guess you figured it out, right? So it's it's really got to be something that's more than just typical aging. The typical aging part of this is, um, sometimes, you know, forgetting a person's name, even a loved one. Right. You know, I, I'm familiar with grandparents who have to say their grandchildren's names and birth orders before they get to the one standing in front of them. Or, um, you forgot when you woke up this morning, you had a dentist appointment, but you figured that out. You looked at your calendar. Perhaps you even received a phone call that you had missed your appointment. And when that phone call happened, it triggered that memory of like, oh, that's right, I did have that appointment. I know who my dentist is, and I totally missed that. This kind of sign is something more than that. It can be forgetting really important dates or events, getting that phone call from the dentist, telling you that you have forgotten your appointment, and asking them, you know, who are you? Not even realizing that's your dentist. Um, not having any. Not having that trigger of the thought that. Oh, that's right, I did have a dentist appointment this week and really increasingly needing to rely on memory aids or your family members to help you remember things. Or your friends keep telling you that, you know, you keep forgetting your lunch dates with them or things like that. Now, I do want to point out real quickly before we go in these signs, everybody kind of has a baseline too. So you are who you are, who you've been for your whole life. So for example, in this sign, my mother did have Alzheimer's. But my whole life, even as a little child, I grew up with little post-it notes on fronts of our kitchen cabinets. That's how she reminded herself of things. You know, even in her 40s, there would be a sign up there about dentist appointments, and there was a grocery list. And so seeing those kind of memory aids as she aged, that she had been doing that for 50 years. So that was her baseline when I saw those on her cabinets that, you know, 70. That didn't concern me because that's who she was. What I noticed that was the difference. There was a little cluster of them on one particular cabinet, and the post-its were things like what's her favorite fragrance? What was her favorite song? What was her favorite flower? She was literally writing the memory aids now to remind her of who she was. They weren't all just about dentist appointments and birthdays, so that is the type of disruption of daily life. You know, needing reminders to help you get through your day and represent yourself as, as yourself. Those are the concerning things. The second one is challenges and problem solving or planning. Now we all can make occasional errors when we are paying our bills or managing our finances. And again, this goes back to your baseline, right? Some of us know people. That's not uncommon for them to bounce a check. They've had their power turned off in the past because they forgot to pay bills. Like this is just who they are. So when that happens and they're older, we may not worry quite as much. This is, you know, someone who still manages their checkbook, you know, pen and paper and the ledger, and they're balancing their checkbook, and all of a sudden they're overdrafting on their accounts or they're forgetting to pay bills, or you notice that they're having problems with basic numbers. You know, if they happen to be a woodworker or something, you're realizing they're having to buy a lot more wood because they have to measure often or sometimes with those of us who are cooks. If we're trying to double a recipe or even just trying to measure with tablespoons and teaspoons, we get really confused and, you know, foods not tasting like it used to. That's that problem solving or planning symptom that we're talking about here. The third sign is difficulty completing familiar tasks. So things that we don't do very often. Remember this is familiar task. So some new routine that you just started last Christmas and you can't remember it this year. Well, it's you know, at that point it's been 12 months or all of a sudden you decide you're going to defrost a chicken in your microwave. You've never done that before. Um, you know, it may not be intuitive to you. Anything with technology is typically not a concern, um, with a senior citizen, because technology is changing all the time and it can be hard to keep up with that. So we're talking about very familiar tasks like getting lost, driving to a familiar location, or not getting through your whole grooming routine, for example. You know, we're starting to realize we were forgetting to brush our teeth or people are were going out in public and people are saying, oh, Joe, did you forget to comb your hair today or we play a game very regularly, not just once a year. But, you know, maybe we're a golfer and a golf league, and now our buddies are are riding us because we can't remember the rules of the game or we can't remember how to keep score. Um, or. We used to be very organized. You know, my mom was very organized with her grocery list, and she would put them in the order of how she walked the store. So the produce was all first, and, you know, on and on. And she started having organization problems. And you could see that in her home, even that she wasn't as organized, so familiar tasks and completing them can be a sign. The fourth one is confusion with place or time. So again, this is something major. It's not. I mean, right now I do not have a watch on my phone is not out. I literally have no idea what time it is. Um, Or for me personally in my life sometimes Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday I'll run together, you know, Fridays. Happy day. We all know the weekend. Monday sucks, right? But. So sometimes I might have to remind myself, is this Wednesday? Is it Tuesday? But I know how to get that answer. It comes to me very quickly. This is something much, much more pronounced, like losing whole seasons, you know. Right? Right now we're sitting toward the end of March, and all of a sudden we think, we got to go get our turkey for Thanksgiving. Something, you know, really pronounced like that, not understanding passages of time. So maybe we're seeing things on the news that are actually recorded files of things that happened 20 years ago. You know, we're having the anniversary of something big, but we don't understand that that happened 20 years ago. We, you know, think that that actually happened today. And we're telling our family members, you know, oh, gosh, did you see what happened today? And they're trying to explain to us, no, that that's a ten year old thing. So that would be something to be concerned about when it comes to confusion with place or time. So like very dramatic differences from just minor confusion. The fifth one is usually surprising to people. This is trouble understanding visual images or spatial relationships. So yes, our eyes age. It's very common to have glaucoma cataracts. As we age. We may need to start using reading glasses or get a higher prescription in our glasses. Move to bifocals. All that is typical aging. What a lot of people don't realize is there's a part of our brain that controls our peripheral vision and our depth perception, and our ability to see color and contrast. We Spacing between things that are similar and all that's controlled by the brain. So you may notice your loved one is having more trouble balancing, or they may walk with a shuffle because they're having problems judging different distances. My mom kept saying something was wrong with her vision, and we went to several eye doctors who continued to tell her nothing was wrong with her eyeballs. They were both right. Nothing was actually wrong with her eyeballs. What was wrong was that part of her brain that was controlling the depth perception part, and that's what she was experiencing was having those kinds of problems. So, you know, if your loved one is still driving and they're side swiping mailboxes or making improper lane changes or stopping at four way stops in the middle of the intersection instead of behind the stop sign, or you notice they're falling more often, or running into things that are just out of the corner of their eye. That could be a sign or symptom. So always, of course, a first go to an eye doctor. But if they can't find something, you may want to talk to your physician about that being a sign or symptom of something that's happening with the brain.

Connie Gaylor: 14:09

Dana, you made me something come to my mind when you talk about them determining color. Mhm. Um, so I've talked about my aunt a little bit, and she began doing things that I would think also affected her taste. So she would go to do a bowl of cereal and instead of putting white milk in she would put dark Diet Coke in.

Dayna Ritchey: 14:33

Oh wow.

Connie Gaylor: 14:34

But she would eat it.

Dayna Ritchey: 14:36

Wow.

Connie Gaylor: 14:37

So it's like when you said color. I would have thought, okay, that kind of understands that she doesn't think about that. She's not pouring a white milk in.

Dayna Ritchey: 14:46

Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 14:47

Is now she's pouring a dark liquid in. Yeah, but she would eat it, which would make me think. Does it affect their taste in any way?

Dayna Ritchey: 14:56

It can. So a lot of people talk about it almost like chemotherapy. And I don't know that it's really deadening our taste buds, but it will dull them. And I had to be concerned about my mother eating expired things. She could not taste, you know, she would be eating something that I could see the visible evidence that it wasn't well and good and she couldn't taste that sourness or whatever. Um, and so what tends to happen is really sweet things. We keep that, um, love of sugar, that ability to taste sweet things the longest. So that's why also some people, my father in law, who had frontotemporal dementia, he was not a big candy eater or processed food eater. He was one of the healthiest eaters I had ever met. And in his dementia, he became diabetic because he could not get enough sugar. He literally would take the sugar bowl for the coffee pot and eat it like he was eating cereal. He even took a stick of butter one time and unwrapped it and started eating it like a candy bar because he just he he didn't feel satiated. That was part of his disease as well. But he couldn't like I can't imagine a stick of butter tasting well, but he couldn't taste that. And he the taste that he could always taste was sugar. So if you're just tasting dull, bland, nothing, and then you get something like sugary, even Diet Pepsi. She may not have really been able to tell that difference, and she may have enjoyed it because it was probably sweeter tasting the milk.

Connie Gaylor: 16:42

And that's what I'm thinking based on what you're saying, because that kind of made sense. You know, some of that. And she did eat a lot of sweets. Yeah. You know, so they had to stop bringing so much into the house because of it. But she would grab a a box of pop tarts and they would find half eaten pop tarts all over the house, you know, and she would go through them very quickly. Yeah. You know, so.

Dayna Ritchey: 17:04

Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 17:04

That.

Dayna Ritchey: 17:05

Inability to feel full or it can go the other way where you don't feel hungry. So my mother also lost a lot of weight before we realized what was happening. She was not feeling hungry, so she just didn't eat. Um, because that that's again controlled in our brain. Those hunger pains or those feelings of fullness that's controlled in the brain and can be damaged by this disease. The sixth sign is problems when it comes to speaking or writing. So we all struggle, um, some from time to time, especially as we get older, you know, having trouble coming up with the right word. Um, so that can be really common, where you feel like you're playing a game with your family members describing the word, and they help you find the word and that that's usually normal. This is more having a having problem, actually getting your words out, or having a problem with your attention where you're right in the middle of a story or a conversation, and you just completely lose your train of thought and cannot retrieve it, no matter how much everybody else tries to give you clues as to what you were talking about. Um, it can also be not coming up with names of words, so we just describe them. Um, so like a hand clock or a wrist clock instead of the word watch, um, or, you know, having a word that's very generic that we just use all the time now. So with my mother, it was the word thingy. Thing with a Y, which is not very descriptive. So anytime she'd ask for the thingy, you know, that just almost made things worse. I had another gentleman tell me his father in law used to use the word units. He would talk about the units and go get my units, and it can be just kind of a catch phrase for something that comes to us, and it can impact our writing ability too. So my mother was. She loved crosswords. She was a great speller, and she was losing her ability to spell first. So I would notice again, back to the grocery list. She was spelling things phonetically. And so the first thing I remember was cheese had a Z instead of an S, and then like one day something was written down and I just had to sound it out. It was applesauce, um, which is kind of already spelled phonetically, but she didn't spell it that way. But if I sounded things out that she wrote, I could most times figure it out. But she was losing that ability to spell, and she eventually lost her ability to write. I can remember one Christmas doing the Christmas cards. She could still sign her name. Beautifully gorgeous cursive, but couldn't could not address the envelopes. By the next Christmas, she couldn't even sign her name. It was like she lost that ability to hold the pen and know how to write number seven. So again, hold on to your seats. Listen to the whole thing. Misplacing things, but losing that ability to retrace your steps. So that goes back to, you know, losing our car in Kroger. But we know how to retrace our steps. We know how to use our aides to to help us find things like the alarm on the car remote button. You know, that all comes back to us, at least somebody who's living in these early stages of dementia. They not only could lose things and have no idea where they put them, but when we find them, they can be in really unusual places, like shoes in the freezer or keys in the microwaves things. Things you just would never put in those places. And then they have that inability to to retrace their steps. Uh, it's also sometimes lead us to, to being pretty suspicious. So when my mother would lose things, there was no other explanation as to why they were missing than somebody sold them in her mind. It couldn't have been any other reason, but someone stole them. And, you know, it was kind of offensive to my sister and I to be accused of stealing. I was accused of stealing bananas. Obviously, her most prized possession. Her youngest daughter stole bananas from her. But who knows what ever happened to these bananas? But she couldn't find them. And I have no idea, you know. Uh, exactly. But she. We did find something together that she had accused my sister of stealing. And when I found it, I said, mom, is this what you are missing? And she said, oh my gosh, we have to throw it away. I accused your sister of stealing that, and she remembered that and didn't want to, like, get caught. And she didn't want to go back and say like, I'm so sorry I accused you, I found them, everything's good. She wanted to get away, get throw out the evidence. So it was almost childlike. It was really funny. But yeah, that misplacing things, finding them in odd places, never finding them, you know, they're always losing their wallets all of a sudden. Those are things to be concerned about. Uh, number eight is decreased or poor judgment. So we can all make a bad decision every once in a while, you know, forget to change the oil in our car. Uh, maybe nowadays there's so many scams out there, and you can easily fall prey to a scam. That doesn't mean you have dementia, that you've fallen prey to a scam. But it could be. Typically, what we see are one of two areas, either when it does come to grooming. Um, or keeping yourself clean or or with money. Um, unfortunately. So maybe you go to church with an older gentleman. He always comes in with a three piece suit, clean shaven hair, and every place. That's how you've always known him. For years and years. And now all of a sudden, he's coming in and he's only got half his face shaved, or his clothes aren't buttons in the proper order, or he just looks really disheveled and everybody can have one bad day. But you're noticing this repeatedly that he's really struggling in the area of grooming, um, or just, again, dealing with money. So we did see this in my mom. Here's how we figured this out. What mom was doing was she was very generous woman. So she was making lots of little $10 donations. And so the first thing that clued me in is I notice huge amounts of mail. One day, the mail man was actually trying to stuff all her mail in her mailbox when I showed up, and I said something to him about, you know, it's a pretty big mail day, hun. He said, honey, this is every day here. And so I pull out the mail as I'm walking up my mom's walk, you know, being nosy and I'm like, oh my gosh, every politician from any party was writing her. Every, you know, especially animal related charities. She had always given to the SPCA since I was a little, little girl, and I think word got out and now she was saving the whales and saving the aardvarks and saving, you know, every little thing they were writing her about. Um, so I noticed that in her mail. And then when it came the end of the year, she fanned out a whole bunch of calendars like it was a deck of cards in front of my sister and said, who needs a calendar for next year? And they were all from these charities that she had been giving to. And so it was, you know, like I said, just little $10 checks. You send her a mail piece of mail Monday, she sends you $10, you send her something else again, same charity. Wednesday, she sends you $10. And when I got involved, she was giving away hundreds of dollars every single month to great charities. She just had no idea that that's what she was doing. So, you know, poor judgment there. Because she lived in a fixed income, she really couldn't do things like that. Uh, the ninth one is withdrawing. Withdrawing from work or social activities. So, you know, sometimes we're not interested in our family things, especially as we age. We don't necessarily want to go to our second cousin's fifth wedding, you know, those types of things. Um, but this is more, you know, withdrawing from things you like, like hobbies or any kind of social activities with friends or going to watch your favorite sports or participate in a sporting event, or even reading or watching certain television programs. So think about, first of all, all the things you've learned. If you're kind of struggling with some things you kind of don't want to, you might feel a little self-conscious and don't want to be found out, but like my mom was not able to watch a program she'd been following every single week for years because she could not remember the storyline. It was the type of program that built upon itself, and she couldn't remember what happened last week, so she lost interest in that. I've heard people who are avid readers and they can't recall, you know, what's happening from chapter to chapter in a novel, so they have to stop reading. I will say about this withdrawal from work and social activities. You know, we talked about these could all be signs of other things that are common as we age. This is one of the signs for people who are facing hearing loss. So if this is the one sign you're most concerned about, go have your hearing checked. I get the whole, you know, talking about stigmas. I get the stigmas about wearing hearing aids sometimes, you know, we're shocked and we just have a big wax build up. And that's all we need is to get a little help with that. But this if this sign is caused by hearing loss, there's actually lots of research that says living with prolonged hearing loss can increase your risk of dementia because you're basically self-isolating. So you definitely, you know, if my choice was hearing aids or Alzheimer's, I'd wear hearing aids. So you definitely want to get that checked out. The very last sign is changes in your mood or in your personality. So, you know, it can be common that we get a little irritable with change. You know, we do rely on a routine. Um, and change can be hard for us as we get older. But this is a little bit more than that. This is usually personality changes or really big mood shifts like, um, becoming confused or, like we said, suspicious or depressed, showing a lot of signs of anxiety and stress or fearfulness. You know, talking about, you know, things you think are happening in your house, but but your loved ones can't find evidence of that. Um, getting upset when you're out of your home. You know, being outside of your comfort zone and getting kind of irritable about that. Um, you know, that's the type of change we're talking about for that last one. Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 28:44

Uh, for the listeners, because we mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast. Um, the term cognitive. So can you tell us the difference between mild cognitive impairment and dementia, so that we know one doesn't necessarily mean that it's the other? Yeah. Right.

Dayna Ritchey: 29:04

Yeah. So a lot of people have heard about mild cognitive impairment. It's um, sometimes referred to by the acronym MCI. It is a specific stage of cognitive decline that falls between the normal aging, typical age related change and an actual dementia. So it's kind of in between people that have MCI. They'll experience some noticeable problems with memory, thinking, reasoning, but they're not really severe enough that they interfere with their daily lives or ability to perform daily activities. So it's just kind of this in-between stage, like forgetting things more often, having a little bit more trouble with language, but making it through, noticing, you know, again, concerns about decision making or judgment. Um, MCI can be an early sign of dementia. It can be kind of that pre-alzheimer's stage. But that's actually not inevitable. It's not. Well, that means you will move into Alzheimer's. Some people just stay in that MCI, level that in between level and it doesn't necessarily progress. So early detection of that MCI can be really helpful because one, some of the treatments we talked about last week that have been approved by the FDA, MCI, people with MCI are really good candidates for that. That's what those treatments help with those very early stages. But also if it will progress into Alzheimer's, which nobody can really tell you if it will. But it is a good warning that, hey, we should prepare for the future. We should kind of get our ducks in a row if this does progress, while our loved ones are still fully capable of making their own decisions, we should do that. So in comparing the two, dementia is a more severe form of cognitive decline that's specifically impacting a person's ability to live their daily life the way that, you know, in a safe manner, um, or in the way that they had before versus MCI is is not that severe?

Connie Gaylor: 31:25

Okay. Is there anything else that we want to add to the warning signs before we we close out this podcast?

Dayna Ritchey: 31:35

No. I mean, I have, I guess the the one warning sign, this is the sign that broke the camel's back for me with my mom. And it goes back to the one about, um, not relating to place and time. Um, so my mom had indicated to us that she was concerned she was getting lost. And when I talked to her about it, she was driving into a part of town where there's a lot of construction going on. They were changing the exit ramps. I mean, I was getting lost over there, too. So I wasn't super concerned, but I knew why that stressed her out, because she knew that that was a sign of dementia. So I was able to get a tracker I could put on her car. It worked great. It actually relieved her stress. A great deal to know we could find her if she accidentally ended up in Michigan, or was on the side of the road with, you know, no gas, something like that. So it did its job. It was great. She wasn't going anywhere. She shouldn't be. Everything worked out well. Then Thanksgiving came. So 11 months later, she doesn't show up for Thanksgiving lunch. She's supposed to be at my sister's house. They live two miles away from each other, and they had lived in the same places for 15 plus years. So my sister calls her at lunchtime. My mom answers and she is fit to be tied. She is so angry because she has come over for Thanksgiving lunch and we have not answered the door for her, and she is quite certain we are playing an awful trick on her and she is just beyond anger. So go back to the tracker. Fortunately, we still had the tracker on her car. My mom came, tried to come over to my sister's house for Thanksgiving lunch at three in the morning. So just think about what it looks like when you back out of your garage, which is what she had to do back out of your garage at three in the morning. Would you think that it's lunchtime and what you see? And we asked her, didn't that seem weird? It had to be pitch black. And she said, you know, it felt like something wasn't right. But what was just overriding in my brain is my family's wait on me. I'm going to be late. I got to get to Thanksgiving. This urgency, this nagging, this fear just overtook any sense of logic, she told us. And she could not get past that to the point that she would check out the time or anything like that. The other really sad thing was when you looked at the tracker. She wasn't at my sister's house. She was at another house down the block. People we did not know how she had never been to, and fortunately they must have been out of town for Thanksgiving because they didn't call the police on her. Because not only did she do this at three, she did this 30 minutes later. An hour later, she tried three times to go to my sister's house in the middle of the night. The whole time going to the wrong door and ringing a doorbell. That was not not anything close to my sister's house. So that was kind of there were looking back now, we know there were lots of other little signs, but that was the big sign. And unfortunately, a lot of times people will get to something like that. And fortunately for us, hers wasn't more unsafe than that. She did always safely get back home. The cops weren't called. Uh, you know, it took a lot to calm her down, but we didn't have to deal with. She set her house on fire, or she was in a terrible car accident. Um, so you really, you know, you always want to deny these signs or symptoms are happening in your loved one, but that's why it's really important for you to, you know, coax them to talk to their physician about what you're experiencing. And and the other thing is, don't tell somebody, oh, my gosh, I listened to this podcast about the signs and symptoms of dementia. And I think you have Alzheimer's. We should talk to the doctor about Alzheimer's. Nobody wants to go to the doctor to be told they have Alzheimer's. That's not a good way to get somebody to go to the doctor. So maybe if they're unaware and not wanting to see a doctor, use some of the things I told you before. You can find articles online that talk about confusion related to thyroid issues or dehydration. Hydration, urinary tract infections, vitamin deficiencies. Use those types of things. Show that to your loved one. Explain. I've been seeing some of these things in you. Have you been seeing these things? Maybe we should go to the doctor. We got really lucky with my mom. We we just asked her, mom, have you started any new medication? You just seem so confused. She had and it actually was for thyroid disease. But that opened the door, even though that wasn't the answer. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but that opened the door that we had permission to have conversations with her doctor for her to make those doctor's appointments and, you know, learn what was really wrong. Yeah. Wow. That is such great, great advice. It is.

Connie Gaylor: 36:50

And thank you for, man for just being so open about your experience. That's what makes it personal to our listeners. Thanks. Is is being able to relate on those things that sound like that could happen to our own parents or loved ones, right? So that's that's what makes the difference in this podcast. It really does.

Amy Frederick: 37:11

And let's go over how the best way to get Ahold of the Alzheimer's Association. Yeah, the website, all that good stuff.

Dayna Ritchey: 37:17

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. So yeah, if you're concerned about any things that I talked about, we have a 24 over seven helpline. So literally 24 hours a day every holiday. You can reach us to ask about these signs or symptoms. That number is 800 272 3900. We have a great general website. It's alz.org. If you go to ALS. Org slash ten signs. So the numbers ten one zero signs ALS. Org ten signs. You'll see a list. If you've been driving in your car you know you'll see a list there of all those warning signs, all the things I just talked about. If you're in the local Cincinnati area, you can also go to Al's. Org slash Cincinnati to learn about our programs and services that we have here locally. This is a common education program that we give out in the community for free to any audience. If you want your civic organization to hear this. Your church family to hear this, whoever, um, where there's an audience of ten or more will come to speak. So you can also request that speaker to come out at that 800 number, which again is 800 272 3900.

Connie Gaylor: 38:44

Well, thank you, listeners, thanks for sticking with us in this podcast. Look for another upcoming podcast with Dana. Um, that's going to be focused on communications with Alzheimer's. And we thank you.

Dayna Ritchey: 38:58

Thank you, thank you.