My aunt Jenny Liang had always been a traditional woman with an extroverted personality. She was married for 42 years, retired for seven years, and had five children and nine grandchildren. She liked to cook and always smiled at everyone and everything.
One day, her personality suddenly changed.
Her daughters noticed that their mom no longer smiled at them and that she became easily upset and angry. She didn’t have the patience to listen to others and stopped caring for her hygiene. Her smiles became frowns, and she began complaining about everything in her home.
As time went on, she became more irritable, and then she began avoiding social events and friends, eventually losing interest in the cooking that she loved to do for so many years. She was so affected by nervousness and anxiety that her personality changed to neuroticism.
After two years, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Many people with Alzheimer’s disease have a similar experience to my aunt’s. In one study, about 47 percent of patients showed personality changes before being clinically diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease. A longitudinal assessment of non-demented older adults demonstrated that the very first changes in personality in these adults were associated with the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
If you want to detect Alzheimer’s disease as early as possible to intervene most effectively, the first indication of the disease might be personality changes other than subtle memory or cognitive deficits, and the changes will progress with measurable cognitive loss.
Warning Signs of Personality Change
Our moods and behavior naturally fluctuate; healthy people vary in their overall personality, mood, and behavior from day to day. However, sudden or significant changes in personality or extreme changes in behavior often indicate problems.
The most common warning signs of personality changes include:
- Increased rigidity
- Increased egocentricity
- Coarsening of personality
- Growing apathy
- Insensitivity to others
- Poor emotional control
- Diminished emotional responsiveness
- Aimless hyperactivity
Other neuropsychiatric symptoms include:
- Depression
- Believing things that aren’t real
- Hallucinations
- Hostile or violent behavior
- Anxiety or nervousness
- Sleep disorders
- Poor judgment
- Inappropriate or risky behavior
- Lack of impulse control
- Frequent and/or intense emotional outbursts
For many relatives and caregivers, changes in a person’s behavior and personality will most often be the earliest observable signs of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s important to be compassionate and keep in mind that these changes come as a result of the initiation and progression of the disease.
Personality Traits Might Predict Alzheimer’s
Features of your personality might also predict Alzheimer’s disease.
According to the authors of a longitudinal study on personality’s association with this disease, personality traits are described as “enduring dispositions that underlie individuals’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral tendencies.” These traits are related to a person’s lifestyle and can be implicated in physical and mental health conditions, including affecting the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
This study of 1,671 participants indicated that certain personality traits are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Those with neurotic personalities who are more likely to be anxious, depressed, and vulnerable to stress had a 3.1-fold increase in risk for the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. Those with conscientious personalities and who are well-organized and have better self-discipline and willpower, however, had a 3.3-fold decrease in risk of the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
The study estimated that the personalities of neuroticism and conscientiousness could account for 13 percent and 11 percent of Alzheimer’s disease cases in the population, respectively.
A study of a cohort of 2,046 community-dwelling older adults found that individuals who developed Alzheimer’s disease scored significantly higher on neuroticism and lower on conscientiousness and extraversion.
These results strengthen the hypothesis that personality traits are independent risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease rather than the consequences. The participants were followed up for as long as 36 years, and the personality tendencies were found at least 6.44 years before the onset of the disease.
Why Personality Affects Alzheimer’s Disease
This association between personality and Alzheimer’s disease might be interpreted by the links related to health behaviors, physiological pathways, and coping skills.
The seven most commonly identified risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease include depression, mid-life obesity, diabetes, mid-life hypertension, smoking, low educational attainment, and physical inactivity. Each of these risk factors can be shown to relate to personality. Since these seven risk factors contribute to approximately half of the cases of Alzheimer’s disease globally, it stands to reason that personality is one of the most influential factors in the incidence of the disease.
Direct physiological pathways related to Alzheimer’s disease are also associated with personality, such as elevated levels of inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-6, chronic elevated white blood cell count, metabolic syndrome, and more.
Personality traits are related to coping skills, and chronic stress over a person’s lifespan may contribute to an inability to cope with the neurodegenerative process underlying Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disease that continuously damages neural cells in multiple areas of the brain, affecting neuronal functions. When parts of the brain fail to do their job, a person may exhibit personality changes and odd behaviors.
Mind and Body Practice Affects Personality, Helps Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease
Rooted in ancient Eastern traditions, mind and body practice pertains to holistic practices that build and strengthen the connections between the emotional, mental, and physical aspects of a human being. Mind and body practice can provide effective and nonpharmacologic approaches to calm the mind, relax the physical body, and have a long-term impact on the brain and behavior, eventually changing one’s personality.
There’s growing interest in meditation due to its well-documented beneficial effects on physical and psychological health. A case-controlled study found that the mindfulness-meditation experience was negatively related to neuroticism and positively related to extraversion in the group of meditators, presumably leading to alterations in personality.
A 10-year study on U.S. adults found that mind and body practice could significantly enhance cognitive function and executive function. Cognitive function is one of the most important factors that influence personality, and high executive function leads to increased conscientiousness and openness. As a result, mind and body practice changes a practitioner’s personality.
Mind and body practice can thus help to relieve Alzheimer’s directly.
Alzheimer’s disease has been known to be an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder. Although numerous clinical trials have been undergone or are still undergoing, no therapy has been shown to cure the disease yet.
Mind-body therapies have recently emerged as complementary therapies because a combination of practices such as meditation and yoga can have a direct effect on brain volume, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, serotonin, cortisol levels, and sleep quality, which directly or indirectly affect the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease.
A 12-week mindfulness-meditation-based “Brain Fitness Program” significantly improved 84 percent of participants’ cognitive function. The participants had either no atrophy or an actual growth above the baseline volume of their hippocampus under a post-program quantitative structural magnetic resonance imaging scan.
Research on long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation demonstrated that meditation could increase brain volume mainly in the temporal and frontal areas of the right hemisphere and the brainstem. Participants had a measurable 6.9 percent larger gray matter volume in 11 areas of the brain. Gray matter contains a large number of neurons. An increased volume allows the brain to process more information and strengthens neural cell communication, enabling individuals to better control movement, memory, and emotions.
Insomnia is prevalent in people with Alzheimer’s disease. After a one-month yoga practice, participants with insomnia reported decreased stress and greater sleep quality. Participants in another three-month yoga and meditation practice reported decreased anxiety and depression. Researchers found there to be an inverse correlation between the increased plasma level of brain-derived neurotrophic factors and an observable magnitude of the cortisol awakening response. The study showed that the plasma level of the anti-inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-10 increased and the pro-inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-12 was reduced after the practice. Such a result suggests that mind and body practice can help stop or reverse the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
A three-month practice of tai chi, another popular mind and body practice, has also been shown to help with insomnia, with the results lasting for up to 24 months. Such findings indicate that yoga and tai chi should be recommended as first-line nonpharmacological management for insomnia and to alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.