Canadian baby boomers seem to know precious little about Alzheimer's disease -- even a startling number of those who have a family member or friend with the disease, a new survey reveals.
The online survey of more than 1,000 respondents aged 45-65 was conducted by the Alzheimer Society. It finds that many couldn't even name "memory loss" as being a warning sign of the incurable brain disease.
In fact, almost one in four people could not name a single symptom of Alzheimer's.
Only 51 per cent knew that having difficulty recognizing people, names, words, dates, places, or doing everyday tasks is a warning sign of the disease. And only 48 per cent knew that signs of short-term memory loss, such as losing or misplacing things, is also a sign of the degenerative disease.
Far fewer respondents could identify other common symptoms such as disorientation of time or place, repetitive behaviour and wandering.
Once the respondents were presented with a list of 10 symptoms, more than 90 per cent realized they had heard that frequent memory loss was a key symptom. As well, 85 per cent said they had heard that disorientation, such as getting lost in a familiar place, was a symptom.
Strangely, even those who were personally touched by the disease fared only slightly better compared to those with no experience of the illness. For example, 17 per cent of people who said they had a family member or friend with Alzheimer's disease could not name any of the signs of the disease without being prompted.
The survey also found many were unaware of Alzheimer's risk factors.
When respondents were presented with a list of 13 risk factors and asked to identify which factors they had previously known about, close to 80 per cent said they knew that increasing age raised the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And 53 per cent said they knew that a lack of mental or social stimulation also raises the risk.
But a full 10 per cent said they were not aware that any of the factors increased one's risk for the disease.
The Alzheimer society says the results are startling, given that some of the respondents might one day be affected by Alzheimer's. That's because the risk of the disease doubles every five years after age 65.
The survey included a geographically, nationally representative sample of 1,006 online respondents and was completed in July 2010.
