Changes in vision, hearing, taste, touch and balance are undetected signs of dementia that can appear years before known symptoms appear, experts have warned.
Dementia, a condition that affects the lives of millions of people, is known for the problems it causes with memory, language, and mood.
Doctors, using tools such as memory tests and interviews, focus on these aspects when diagnosing this disease.
But now scientists say there is growing evidence that dementia begins to damage the senses many years before classic symptoms appear.
This, they say, offers hope that sensory changes can be used as an early warning sign, helping patients to be diagnosed much earlier.
They have called for these sensory changes to be included in standard dementia diagnostic tests, which currently focus mainly on memory difficulties.
An early diagnosis of dementia is considered crucial, as although the disease has no cure, treatments can relieve symptoms and slow its progression.
The team includes three renowned dementia experts: Professor Andrea Tales from Swansea University, Dr Emma Richards from Public Health Wales and Professor Jan Kremláček from Charles University in Prague.
“Expanding the diagnostic approach beyond memory testing opens up the possibility of identifying dementia in pre-clinical stages, when therapies and lifestyle changes may be most effective,” explained Professor Kremláček.
Dr Richards added:
"Many patients report experiencing these sensory changes years before receiving a diagnosis, but these symptoms may be overlooked during standard cognitive assessments."
Understanding and addressing these issues, as well as offering support early, can make a big difference, enabling healthcare professionals to provide emotional and social support at a time that can be turbulent and distressing.
In addition, understanding changes in a person's senses can help the clinician determine a diagnosis of dementia."
Dementia, and especially its early signs, have previously been linked to changes in sensory perception.
As a neurodegenerative disease—meaning it causes atrophy and gradual loss of brain tissue and volume—it is thought to affect the way our senses function, even in the early stages.
Earlier this year, neurologists highlighted that loss of the sense of smell could be an early sign of dementia and can appear 10 years before other known symptoms.
But it's not just smell—vision disturbances and balance problems are some of the earliest, often overlooked signs, especially in younger patients.
Writing for The Conversation this year, Molly Murray, an expert on early-onset dementia from the University of the West of Scotland, said that for many patients, the first sign of the disease is eye problems.
“Research shows that for about a third of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s [the most common form of dementia], the first symptoms were problems with coordination and changes in vision,” she wrote.
Experts have also warned that problems with spatial perception, such as standing too close to people, are also warning signs that can appear up to 20 years before classic symptoms.
More than 944,000 people in the UK are thought to be living with dementia, while in the US this number is around 7 million.
Recent analysis by the Alzheimer's Society estimates that the total annual cost of dementia in the UK is £42 billion, with families bearing the brunt.
An ageing population means these costs—which include the lost income of unpaid carers—are expected to rise to £90 billion in the next 15 years.
A separate analysis by Alzheimer's Research UK showed that 74,261 people died from dementia in 2022, compared to 69,178 the year before, making the disease the biggest cause of death in the country. /GazetaExpress/
edition
t7 live
