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1) Is forgetting certain spellings in English (easy ones, and remembering the tougher ones) and other things like daily chores etc., a sign for Alzheimer's?

2) Does Alzheimer's affect people under the age of 30?

3) Is there any research work which states or which can be used to see if forgetting small spellings or dreaming certain alphabets (which one hasn't drawn for 5 years), but remembering other basics as well as advanced things a sign of depleting brain capacity?

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  • they say if you forget where you put your keys, that's normal. If you forget what keys are for, see your doctor Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 16:39
  • @KateGregory Isn't that too much. Forgetting certain spellings at some point of time and the next day thinking how was I foolish to spell it that way (I knew the spelling but what was going on that I spelled it multiple times that way). Is that ok by their research ?
    – Shashaank
    Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 16:47

1 Answer 1

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There are four cognitive symptom categories for Alzheimer's disease: aphasia, amnesia, apraxia, agnosia. These are broad categories that our brains handle somewhat separately. People frequently do sustain a brain injury to the left side of the head that damages his or her ability to process language and speech without affecting any other cognitive abilities. Our ability to utilize language is somewhat separate in the brain from areas responsible for the ability to reason, remember or use muscles.

So transient forgetting of spellings of common words would be processed in the language areas of the brain, and deficits of that ability are called Aphasia.

Forgetting daily chores falls into the category of Amnesia and is handled by a different area of the brain.

But your examples are about as non serious as they can get. Everyone has minor lapses in cognitive ability. So I'm hesitant to suggest seeing a doctor as I don't want to be blamed for a bunch of people getting laughed at when they go see their doctor for symptoms that lack of sleep may cause. Pose some more serious examples or extensive repeated lapses of forgetfulness or difficulty with words, or motor control, and I would have no problem suggesting you speak with a doctor.

Yes, Alzheimer's disease can happen to people in their late teens. But it is very rare. Most commonly onset of this condition is 40 or above. https://www.gstatic.com/healthricherkp/pdf/alzheimer_s_disease.pdf

And I simply don't know enough about aphasia research to answer your third question. I suspect the answer may be out of scope for this forum, but I don't know. Perhaps someone else will. However I must also caution you that dementia is one of the most serious, but isn't the only cause of cognitive lapses.

http://www.alzfdn.org/AboutAlzheimers/symptoms.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia

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  • Welcome to health SE :-). Since health is an important topic, we have a strict policy that answers should be supported with reliable references, since they are the only way for the community to asses the merit of an answer, regardless of the reader's background. You can always edit your answer to add some. As an aside, although the info on concussion is interesting, I'm pretty sure that the OP would remember if they had one.
    – Lucky
    Commented Mar 2, 2017 at 3:06
  • Thanks for clarifying. Could you please tell what according to research is defined as Above Normal Memory. Let it be related scientific , mathematical skills or remembering education ( that you got previously) and less on social skills ( because they can be more relative. I mean I want to know what is a sort of barrier ( set by research) between , Bad ( but not falling under any disease category) ,Ok , Normal and Above Normal Memory and Retention Capacity. A bit of your thought or a link to such a paper shall suffice
    – Shashaank
    Commented Mar 2, 2017 at 7:01

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