November is National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, but do you know about young onset?

CLEVELAND - November is National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month. But did you know this debilitating disease is not diagnosed in just the elderly? Young-onset can happen to someone as early as their 40s -- maybe even younger.

Some people think having or getting Alzheimer's Disease is a normal part of aging, but it's not. Experts said the greatest known risk factor is increasing age, and the majority of people with Alzheimer's are 65 and older. But Alzheimer's is not just a disease of old age. Up to 5 percent of people with the disease have early-onset Alzheimer's (also known as younger-onset), which often appears when someone is in their 40s or 50s.

If anyone knows the feeling of hearing that diagnosis, it's Patti Girard. She was diagnosed with young-onset at only 55 years old. But in the two years she's been battling her condition, Patti said it was years prior -- when she was in her early 50s -- that she noticed signs.

For Girard, this diagnosis was shocking. She was a nurse. She knew medicine, she knew conditions. What she said she doesn't understand is why when she started to see things happen to her, she just didn't realize what was going on.

"I confused the drugs Lipitor with Lisinopril. They are both L words and I have trouble with words and numbers and I confused those two educating a patient, which could be a deadly mistake," she said.

Those symptoms forced Girard to retire early. She knew she just couldn't take care of patients the way she used to, let alone take care of her own situation. It was a situation that wasn't part of her plans for her future.

"That was when I was going to put more money in my 401K, and I was going to get nursing home insurance,"said Girard. "I was going to plan my retirement in Key West with a drink and umbrella in my hand and I was going to do all of those things. When I went to work on Friday, went to the ER and I never went back to work and never got another paycheck, ever."

Experts said young-onset patients may find it harder to get the diagnosis because of a variety of issues, age being the number one reason. The younger the age and the healthier a patient appears, the harder it may be to rule out Alzheimer's disease. Some patients and doctors may attribute the symptoms to stress, depression or another psychiatric illness.

So we are On Your Side with the 10 warning signs everyone needs to know to help you and your family work with your doctor to rule out young-onset Alzheimer's Disease. According to the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Cleveland, these are the symptoms:
 
1. Memory loss that disrupts daily life
2. Challenges in planning or solving problems
3. Difficulty completing familiar tasks at home, at work or at leisure
4. Confusion with time or place
5. Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships
6. New problems with words in speaking or writing
7. Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps
8. Decreased or poor judgment
9. Withdrawal from work or social activities
10. Changes in mood and personality

If you'd like more in-depth information about these symptoms and what they mean, please click here: www.alz.org/cleveland/