DEMENTIA WARNING SIGNS

A guide to 13 symptoms you should never ignore

- Mark Witten

STEPHEN CHOW KNEW something was off when he started making more typos and spelling errors in his work emails. This was in 2010, and Chow, 51 at the time and living in Scarborough, was an IT specialist for Ontario’s Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.

He tried to ignore the mistakes at first, but the situation became more obvious when attempts to punch in his password kept failing. He found it gradually harder to focus and perform simple, familiar tasks, such as calculating numbers or putting his signature on a document. “Everything was all messed up, and I didn’t know what to do about it,” he says. Not wanting his wife, Eva, and two adult sons to worry, he kept it a secret from them, hoping he could just muddle through.

Instead, over the next several years, more alarming symptoms appeared. As Chow made the daily 90-minute drive to and from work, he had trouble seeing the centre line on the road, as well as the cars beside him. In early 2014, his patchy vision almost killed him when he couldn’t clearly discern the road’s edge and slid into the ditch during a snowstorm. He was unharmed, but his anxiety mounted, and he decided to talk to his family doctor.

When Chow described his difficulties with typing and driving—both related to motor skills—his physician initially referred him to a specialist in Parkinson’s disease. That condition was ruled out because he didn’t have hand or leg tremors. In May of 2014, Chow got an appointment with Dr. Carmela Tartaglia, a cognitive neurologist specializing in early-onset dementia at Toronto Western Hospital.