'I was diagnosed with dementia at 49 after mistaking warning sign for common problem'
A woman who was diagnosed with dementia at the age of just 49 told how she initially mistook one of the symptoms for the menopause.
School teacher Marie told the Channel 5 programme Will You Get Dementia? that she became concerned after forgetting her pupils names. Rather than fear she was suffering from dementia at a young age though, she thought the hot flashes she was experiencing were the start of the menopause.
Speaking to NHS GP Dr Claire Taylor, her husband Neil said: "You were having hot flashes at the time weren't you. We thought it was menopause, that was what was making you forget words and things wasn't it.
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"All the symptoms we've mentioned, well we thought it might be that." Marie added: "Then they told me it wasn't menopause, dementia."
Marie was diagnosed with semantic dementia four years ago, a rare form of the condition that causes a loss of semantic memory. It starts by affecting the comprehension of words.
Dr Taylor added: "It's not only unusual symptoms that prevent an early diagnosis. For some people, it's their age.
"Marie isn't your typical dementia patient. Marie was diagnosed four years ago, at the age of just 49 years old. It was with her children in her class that she first noticed lapses in her memory."
A study released in September 2023 indicated that hot flashes could be an early indicator of dementia.
Rebecca Thurston, the director of Women's Biobehavioral Health at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry, co-authored the 2022 research.
She said: "Hot flashes, particularly those occurring during sleep, have been linked to poorer cognition and, in our prior work, indicators of poorer brain health.
"In this study, we took the next step and looked at the relationships between hot flashes and Alzheimer's disease biomarkers."
Will You Get Dementia? is available to view on My 5 now. For more information on dementia, causes and symptoms, visit the NHS website here.