Cindy was regularly stressed with work as a visiting nurse, as they asked her to see more patients in less hours. Being a conscientious person, this weighed on her. Yet in our society most of us are stressed at some point, if we are lucky we learn how to cope effectively with that stress. Stress becomes a symptom for dementia, in the eyes of some researchers the first symptom for dementia, when unusual behavior in reaction to this stress.
In Cindy’s case this unusual behavior came in a form of denial. Granted, Moms typically are a little blind to the shenanigans of their young, but her tendency to only see good when there definitely was some bad should have been a signal to me that this was a little too abnormal. If my theory is true, that for Cindy her unusual oblivion to unpleasant events was the beginning, then the symptoms started about ten years ago.
The unpleasant events got to a point where they could no longer be ignored. That caused Cindy to do a complete 180 and her stress increased. The typical symptoms of cognitive dysfunction started then.
Most of the other dementia symptoms I will cover are pretty obvious indicators. Abnormal reaction to stress is the one to really watch out for as the earliest and least obvious indicator for something gone wrong with the brain.
