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Hiding Alzheimer’s in Defense of a Sense of Self and Denying Decline
Even patients who know they have cognitive issues try to hide their impairment by downplaying it as joking or misunderstood.
According to the CDC in 2023, Alzheimer's disease has affected 6.7 million people, but this could be a conservative number because not everyone with SDAT has received a diagnosis. In fact, many people with incipient or mild Alzheimer's dementia can function in our society without being noticed.
How is that possible? In this article, I would like to provide several personal instances where I have directly observed these patients attempting to conceal the degree of cognitive decline they have experienced.
At one time in my career, I was fortunate enough to be the national clinical monitor for the first medication to treat Alzheimer's, Cognex. Initially, researchers used this medication at the turn of the 20th century to treat intestinal parasites.
A researcher on the West Coast of the United States found it useful in treating people with Alzheimer's, and that began several researchers probing this specific acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. The work involved touring 17 research sites across the United States to validate the administration of the…
