Does having just one of the signs mean your family member has Alzheimer’s? No, it does not. Several symptoms must be present. Certainly, everyday worries and stress can cause some of the symptoms I just described. The difference is that the person with Alzheimer’s disease shows many of the symptoms, especially as the disease worsens

To better understand Alzheimer’s disease, let me tell you about my friend Dolores and her father-in-law, Don Miguel, the grandfather of the family.

Little by little, Dolores noticed that Grandfather was forgetting how to do things that he used to do for himself. He would start to shave and then stop halfway through. He sometimes forgot his grandson Paul’s name. And some days he got very confused--thinking young Paul was his grown son Thomas. Before, Grandfather paid his bills, but they begin to pile up on his dresser. That was not like Grandfather. Several times he got lost coming home from the market and a neighbor brought him home. The family wondered what was happening.