Skip to content

Quiz: Signs, Symptoms, and Early Recognition

Test your understanding of dementia warning signs and symptom recognition with these 10 review questions. Click "Show Answer" to check your work.

  1. Forgetting a friend's name but remembering it an hour later
  2. Asking the same question multiple times within a short period and not remembering the answer
  3. Occasionally misplacing keys but eventually finding them
  4. Needing to write appointments on a calendar
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Repeatedly asking the same question within a short time, even after receiving an answer, is a classic dementia warning sign. The person forgets not just the answer but the entire conversation. Occasional forgetfulness, using calendars, and misplacing items temporarily are common with normal aging and do not significantly disrupt daily life.

Concept Tested: Memory Loss

2. What is aphasia?

  1. Difficulty with motor tasks despite having normal strength
  2. Difficulty recognizing familiar objects
  3. Language impairment affecting the ability to understand or produce speech
  4. Loss of the sense of smell
Show Answer

The correct answer is C. Aphasia refers to language impairment that can affect understanding speech, producing speech, reading, or writing. In dementia, aphasia often starts as word-finding difficulties and may progress to trouble following conversations or forming sentences. It is a distinct symptom from apraxia (motor difficulties) or agnosia (recognition problems).

Concept Tested: Aphasia

3. A woman with dementia can no longer button her shirt even though her hands work normally and she has not forgotten what buttons are. This is an example of:

  1. Apraxia
  2. Agnosia
  3. Aphasia
  4. Amnesia
Show Answer

The correct answer is A. Apraxia is the inability to perform learned motor tasks despite normal strength, coordination, and understanding. The person knows what they want to do and has the physical ability, but the brain cannot properly plan and execute the movement sequence. Apraxia commonly affects dressing, using utensils, and other everyday actions.

Concept Tested: Apraxia

4. A man with dementia looks at his daughter and says, "Who is this nice lady?" even though she has visited him every week. This is most likely an example of:

  1. Aphasia
  2. Agnosia (inability to recognize familiar people or objects)
  3. Apraxia
  4. Normal aging
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Agnosia is the inability to recognize familiar objects, people, or faces despite intact vision and memory of the concept itself. When agnosia affects face recognition specifically, it is called prosopagnosia. This symptom can be deeply painful for families and is commonly seen in moderate to advanced Alzheimer's disease.

Concept Tested: Agnosia

5. What is mild cognitive impairment (MCI)?

  1. A type of dementia that is always permanent
  2. Cognitive decline greater than expected for age but not severe enough to interfere significantly with daily life
  3. Normal forgetfulness that happens to everyone
  4. A severe form of dementia requiring full-time care
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Mild cognitive impairment is a condition in which a person shows more cognitive decline than expected for their age, but their symptoms are not yet severe enough to meaningfully interfere with daily life. Some people with MCI progress to dementia, some remain stable, and some even improve. Recognizing MCI is important because it creates opportunities for monitoring and early intervention.

Concept Tested: Mild Cognitive Impairment

6. A caregiver notices her mother trying to put on her shirt backwards and struggling to understand how the sleeves connect to the body. This likely reflects:

  1. Visual-spatial problems
  2. Aphasia
  3. Memory loss
  4. Normal aging
Show Answer

The correct answer is A. Visual-spatial problems make it difficult to understand spatial relationships, such as how clothing relates to the body, how far away an object is, or how rooms connect. These problems can also cause people to get lost in familiar places, bump into objects, or have trouble with stairs. Parietal lobe damage commonly produces these symptoms.

Concept Tested: Visual-Spatial Problems

7. Which of the following best describes disorientation in dementia?

  1. Feeling dizzy after standing up quickly
  2. Being unsure of time, place, or familiar surroundings
  3. Having motion sickness
  4. Not remembering a phone number
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Disorientation in dementia involves losing track of time (day, month, season), place (not knowing where one is), or person (not recognizing familiar people). It is often more pronounced in unfamiliar environments or at night. Disorientation is a core symptom that can pose serious safety risks, such as wandering outside at night.

Concept Tested: Disorientation

8. A woman with early-stage dementia gives a large sum of money to a phone scammer despite family warnings. This most likely reflects:

  1. Memory loss
  2. Judgment impairment
  3. Aphasia
  4. Normal caution in old age
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Judgment impairment is a common early symptom of dementia that can make people vulnerable to scams, poor financial decisions, and unsafe behaviors. Even people who were previously careful may make uncharacteristic choices. This is why early recognition matters so much for financial protection, and why legal and financial planning should happen early.

Concept Tested: Judgment Impairment

9. Why does early recognition of dementia symptoms matter?

  1. It allows earlier treatment, safety planning, and participation in decisions while the person can still participate
  2. It guarantees the disease can be cured
  3. It is only important for medical research
  4. It does not really change outcomes
Show Answer

The correct answer is A. Early recognition allows medications to be started when they work best, gives families time for legal and financial planning, opens access to clinical trials, enables safety interventions (like addressing driving), and lets the person participate in care decisions. While dementia cannot yet be cured, early action substantially improves quality of life and reduces crises.

Concept Tested: Mild Cognitive Impairment

10. Which pattern best describes language difficulties in early dementia?

  1. Sudden complete loss of all speech overnight
  2. Gradually increasing word-finding trouble, pauses, and substituted or incorrect words
  3. Speaking only in a foreign language
  4. Loss of the ability to hear spoken words
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Language difficulties in early dementia usually appear gradually. People may pause more often to search for words, substitute incorrect or vague terms ("thing" for specific objects), struggle to follow conversations in noisy settings, or lose the thread of sentences. Sudden total loss of speech suggests a stroke, not dementia, which develops progressively over time.

Concept Tested: Language Difficulties