11 Early Vascular Dementia Symptoms And Signs

early vascular dementia symptoms

Vascular dementia is not a disease; it is a collection of some symptoms that show the occurring of a brain disorder. This term is used to refer to a decrease in memory problems and cognitive ability. Vascular dementia occurs when brain cells are damaged or nerve cells stop working. Many risk factors causing dementia include aging, family history, excessive smoking, heavy alcohol use, atherosclerosis, low and high blood pressure, high levels of cholesterol, diabetes, depression, high estrogen levels as well as other diseases.

In case the damages to the brain continue, vascular dementia symptoms can quickly worsen, making everyday activities difficult. Vascular dementia will get worse in steps suddenly. However, the rate of progression may vary and it can be really difficult to predict when the symptoms may worsen.

List Of Vascular Dementia Symptoms – The Early Symptoms

Vascular dementia symptoms can vary as they depend on which brain area has been damaged and the severity of the damages on the blood vessel. In this article, I will reveal some of the early vascular dementia symptoms in details, so you should not skip out these interesting health facts as well as the list of symptoms that are easily seen in patients with vascular dementia. These symptoms include:

1. Depression

This is the second out of the early vascular dementia symptoms that I would like to reveal in this article and want you and y other readers to learn for good. Depression may be challenging in a patient who suffers from vascular dementia. Patients with vascular dementia may have from 6% to 30% of the presence of dementia. The prevalence of depression in vascular dementia is controversial because of a couple of confounding factors.

In a study of people with vascular dementia, 11.8% experienced depression if compared to only 3.9% of non-demented people. Depressive symptoms can be noticed in people with dementia in the absence of depression. Some symptoms of sadness, insomnia and diurnal mood variation occurring in depression alone may differentiate from depression in vascular dementia. Some symptoms such as retardation, irritability, and weight loss were present in patients with dementia. Therefore, if you experience any symptoms as I mentioned above, you should not ignore them; instead, go to see your doctor to get advice.

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2. Subtle Short –Term Memory Loss

vascular dementia symptoms - subtle short-term memory loss

One of the early vascular dementia symptoms that I want to reveal in this entire article and want all of my readers to know is memory loss. In the early stage, people who suffer from dementia often have short-term memory loss. For example, people with dementia may forget the names of a celebrity or people they know, forget recent events or forget routes or places. The memory loss can become severe enough to affect the daily life of patients.

Because of this short-term memory loss, they will be able to ask others around them the same questions a couple of times. This occurs because of brain damages causing inflammation as well as other biological changes that prevent communication between brain cells.

A study published in 2024 stated that people who suffer from dementia may start losing awareness of their memory issues a few of years before the onset of dementia.

Memory loss is actually one of the common symptoms of vascular dementia, so pay attention to it!

Read More: List Of Healthy Foods To Improve Memory Power And Concentration

3. Mood Swings And Rapid Agitation

Changes in mood becoming increasingly depressed, fearful, suspicious or anxious can also be a sign of dementia. In fact, mild depression is so common among patients who suffer from dementia. A study published in 2024 showed that depression occurs late in life will increase the risk of getting dementia.

Because of frequent mood swings, there may be some change occurring in the person’s personality. For example, a person is shy in nature and suddenly can become outgoing. The person also may become easily upset when someone else is out of their comfort zone or when their routine is disrupted.

These early symptoms of mood swings are difficult to recognize in one’s self, yet are easily noticed by others.

In fact, this is also among the early vascular dementia symptoms, so people should not ignore these symptoms, yet go to see a doctor as soon as possible.

Read More: Top 26 Healthy Foods To Improve Mood Swings And Energy

4. Disregard For Personal Hygiene And Grooming

Another one on the list of vascular dementia symptoms that I want to reveal in this article and want all of my readers to know and consider going to see a doctor if you are experiencing this symptom.

Dementia has an effect on the brain, so people with vascular dementia often forget to take a bath, brush their teeth, comb their hair, change their clothes, clip their fingernails and even use the toilet. Gradually, they start to have no interest in grooming as well as personal hygiene. They may even forget when they brushed their teeth or took a bath last time. Even, they may refuse any kind of help to preserve their own self-respect.

These symptoms will be able to be noticed in people who gave much concern toward personal hygiene and cleanliness in the past, but have now stopped grooming or keeping themselves clean.

This is also a great one on the list of the early vascular dementia symptoms that people should not look down, but learn and consider dealing with it as soon as possible.

5. Misplacing Things

Sometimes, you misplace your things, such as your mobile phone or house keys and it is fine. However, when a person misplaces things more frequently and he or she cannot remember where to find these things, this may show some kind of cognitive issue like dementia.

During the early stage of vascular dementia, people will misplace things and place their things in unusual areas. Also, they lose the ability to retrace their steps. Once they cannot find what they want, they occasionally accuse others of taking them. In case you misplace things, but you are able to retrace your steps in order to find the lost things, then it may be caused by advancing age, and not dementia.

This is actually also one out of the early vascular dementia symptoms that a lot of people with vascular dementia in the world have been experiencing.

6. Getting Confused

vascular dementia symptoms - getting confused

During the early stage, a person with dementia may show symptoms of confusion and lack of concentration. Because of memory loss as well as the problem with communication, confusion will increase. More importantly, confusion can turn up in regards to place and time. For example, patients with dementia may get confused regarding the past, present, and future. They may forget where they are as well as how they are there.

Along with confusion, patients with dementia may have the problem in concentrating and they take more time to perform daily activities than they did before. If properly untreated, the confusion may turn into delirium.

This is, in fact, one of the early vascular dementia symptoms that people should know and prevent your condition from becoming more severe.

Learn More: 6 Brain Exercises To Improve Concentration

7. Lapse In Judgment

Another out of the vascular dementia symptoms that I want to introduce in this entire article and want all of my readers to know and remember for good is that lapse in judgment can be a symptom of vascular dementia.

There may be a problem with making the right judgments and decisions. When the onset of vascular dementia occurs, the thinking capacity of a person starts to deteriorate, and the negative effects can be noticed in his judgments as well as logical capabilities.

A person who suffers from vascular dementia may experience trouble in judging distance, an object’s shape and may make mistakes when using money, etc. For example, they may have difficulty in dealing with everyday problems or making poor judgment when using with money.

8. Lack Of Initiative

Another one out of the early vascular dementia symptoms is lack of initiative or apathy.
Patients who suffer from vascular dementia may lose interest in activities or hobbies that they used to like in the past. They may show less interest in doing activities or going out with their friends or family members. Instead, the patients with vascular dementia may prefer to sleep for hours or watch the television for a couple of hours without having any interest in what is on.

This is also one of the early vascular dementia symptoms that people should know for good, especially those suffering from this kind of dementia. Continue reading this entire article to discover other vascular dementia symptoms and then learn how to deal with these symptoms as soon as possible.

Read also: How To Increase Brain Power And Concentration Naturally

9. Difficulty Identifying Humor

This is another one on the list of early vascular dementia symptoms. This means that patients with vascular dementia may miss sarcasm or not be able to detect sarcasm. Some kinds of neurodegenerative disease may take away the people’s ability to understand indirect language, like sarcasm and deceit.

A study published in 2024 showed that humor can be a sensitive sign of social cognitive impairment in patients who suffer from dementia. Actually, humor can be used as an informative and engaging index of social functioning in people with neurodegenerative diseases.

In fact, this is among the early vascular dementia symptoms, so people should try to find the way to reduce the presence of this symptom.

Check also: 11 Brain Exercises To Improve Memory

10. Difficulty Communicating Thoughts

vascular dementia symptoms - difficulty communicating thoughts

Another one out of early vascular dementia symptoms is to have difficulty communication thoughts and ideas. Simply, it means that people who suffer from dementia often have problems in explaining things to other people. Besides, they may have difficulties with written and verbal communication. A deficiency of depth, as well as logic in conversation, may also occur. This can be linked with memory loss. For example, the person may forget the name of people with whom she or he is talking or forget simple words. Therefore, having a conversation with a person who is suffering from dementia may be difficult and time-consuming.

This is in brief one of the vascular dementia symptoms, so people should not look down, but try to learn to know whether or not they suffer from vascular dementia. Do you want to know other early vascular dementia symptoms? Continue reading this entire article to know whether or not you suffer from vascular dementia.

Learn More: Top 13 Professional Communication Skills Revealed!

11. Frequent Tripping And Falling

This is the last but very important out of the early vascular dementia symptoms that I want to introduce in this entire article and want all of my readers to know if they are suspecting to have vascular dementia. People with vascular dementia often trip over their own feet, resulting in falls. This occurs as they have problems with spatial and visual perception, which makes an increase in frequent falls. Actually, walking and balance problems often occur even in case a patient has mild cognitive impairment.

A study published in 2024 pointed out that dementia was the main risk factor for frequent falls. In case you or someone else you know has frequent falls, talk about this condition with a doctor because it may be one of the early vascular dementia symptoms.

Some other vascular dementia symptoms that patients may experience:

Ÿ Skipping lines while reading

Ÿ Loss of motor skills and sense of smell and touch

Ÿ Seeing things that are not there

Ÿ Difficulty in controlling urination

Ÿ Uncontrolled crying and laughing

Ÿ Difficulty in doing tasks that require many steps

Ÿ Muscle weakness

These symptoms as I mentioned above can show that some brain damages have already occurred. And patients who experience these symptoms need to start treatments immediately. If you think you have early vascular dementia symptoms, see your doctor as slowing it down will be better if they are diagnosed early. If you are worried about someone around you who experience these symptoms, encourage them to go to see a doctor and maybe suggest that you can go along with them. Vascular dementia symptoms can have plenty of different causes. Your doctor can carry out some tests in order to find out what the cause behind your condition may be, and then refer you to a proper treatment.

After you and my other readers read this article about the early vascular dementia symptoms, I hope that all of you will spend a little time reading another article that reveals the list of common symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease – the 9 Common Signs And Symptoms Of Alzheimer’s Disease article. This article is actually interesting and includes some common signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s that a lot of patients diagnosed with this disease are experiencing, so readers of VKool.com should not read this recommended article and then learn something from it.

This is the list of 11 early vascular dementia symptoms that everyone who wants to know whether or not they suffer from this cognitive impairment, should read and remember for good. In fact, these common symptoms of vascular dementia as I mentioned in this article have been found in a plenty of people diagnosed with vascular dementia, so if you are experiencing any of symptoms, you should make an appointment with your doctor to perform some tests to know exactly whether or not you suffer from this condition.

After reading the list of early vascular dementia symptoms, if this list is good for your current health and this list can also help other people around you who are suspecting to suffer vascular dementia, you should share this list with them as soon as possible and remember to encourage them to make an appointment with a mental professional soon. If you know other early vascular dementia symptoms apart from these symptoms as I mentioned above, please to share with others by leaving your comments below. I will try to reply to your comments as soon as possible!

Some articles related to dementia and other conditions that you should know:

9 At Home Natural Remedies For Dementia

How To Prevent Memory Loss In Old Age With 21 Practical Tips

11 Early Symptoms Of Dementia

How To Prevent Dementia Naturally In Old Age

Vascular Dementia Stages – 7 Stages Of This Type Of Dementia

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