Dave Mate watched his wife’s dementia progress for more than two decades. But at the time, no one knew what to call her cognitive decline.
Starting in her late 40s, Mate’s wife, Victoria, began struggling with her executive functioning. One time, she misunderstood a buy-one-get-one free sale at the grocery store. She confirmed the sale with the butcher, but grabbed the wrong item off the shelf. “She was confused and she got into an argument with the cashier,” says Mate, of Johnsburg, Ill.
Around the same time, she wanted repeated reminders for keeping her schedule organized even though she rarely left the house. It was a sharp contrast to who she was just years before — an energetic, artistic woman who once told Mate in a shopping mall that he needed to walk faster and keep up with her.
Although late-onset Alzheimer’s disease is typically characterized by memory loss, early-onset patients often still have their memories intact but struggle with other cognitive functions.
