By Ninah Kessler LCSW
Senior in the work place
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It is progressive and degenerative. As we age the risk of Alzheimer’s disease increases. While one person in eight has Alzheimer’s at age 65, almost half of those over 85 are affected.) With the graying of the American work force we will see an increase in Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Additionally 200,000 Americans with Alzheimer’s who are younger than 65.
Alzheimer’s disease has reached epidemic proportions in the country and the problem will only grow as we live longer. According to the Alzheimer’s association, 5.3 million people in the US have the disease and “the direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias to Medicare, Medicaid and businesses amount to more than $148 billion each year.”
Memory loss is one of the first signs of Alzheimer’s. The general rule is that if you are concerned about memory loss, you probably don’t have it. You don’t have to worry if you lose your car keys, but watch out if you don’t know what your car keys are for. Employees can forget things for many reasons besides dementia including psychological stress, grief reactions, physical illness, sleep problems and dehydration. Some of these problems are easily correctible. An employer cannot tell if an employee has dementia, but certain things may heighten their suspicion.
Here are some things an employer might want to look for:
1. A consistent pattern of forgetting that cannot be explained by other causes.
Short-term information is one of the first things to go in dementia. Employees don’t remember things because it’s forgotten almost as soon as it’s said. When an employee doesn’t show up for a meeting and you question him, he says, “What meeting?”
2. Trouble with self-expression
The employee cannot find the right word, saying “the cold box in the kitchen” instead of the refrigerator
3. Difficulties with orientation
The employee is late for out of the office meetings because he got lost on the way to a familiar location. A sales rep will forget what shopping center he needs to go to.
4. Unpredictable mood changes
An outgoing employee becomes quieter and more moody. An employee becomes angry for no apparent reason. Often people with dementia slip into their own worlds because the outside world is too challenging. They respond from that world and it confuses others. Mood changes can also be cause by depressions and anxiety, which can also accompany dementia.
5. Difficulty learning new technologies or new procedures
As we age we have more trouble multitasking and learning new things but we make up for it with wisdom and resilience. Seniors and those with dementia can learn new things but it takes them longer and they do better with spaced retrieval and errorless learning. They have a better chance when things are explained one at a time with opportunities for practice.
6. Poor Judgment and difficulty with decision making.
The employee may have difficulty making decisions or makes poor decisions. The cause of these poor decisions may be hard to pinpoint. Among other causes difficulty with decision making has been linked to “disproportionate, age-related decline in specific neural systems crucial for complex decision-making.” (Brain Anomalies and Poor Decision-making in Older Adults http://dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=23106)
The symptoms of Alzheimer’s can vary from person to person, but there is likely to be a distinct change from what the person previously was like.
An alternate title is “What you see on the inside produces consequences on the outside”. Scriptures state this a couple of other ways “As an individual thinks in his/her heart so is their destiny” The prophets explained the Israelites initial inability to enter the land of promise by saying “They were like grasshoppers in their own sight and so they were the same in the eyes of others”.
If your child is very intense, sensitive and needy, go to 
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