Dementia isn’t just about memory loss. This illness is accompanied by a multitude of symptoms, from difficulty finding words to loss of taste. Memory loss isn’t the only early sign that something is wrong, either. Dementia reveals a number of clues when it arrives.

American writer and psychotherapist Amy Bloom describes in her memoirs Lover – about her husband’s early dementia – the first, almost invisible, signs that all was not well.

Her husband had become confused by communications he had received about a book club he loved to go to. She heard him complaining about all the emails that were coming in and the schedule changes. He went to meetings on the wrong night and forgot where other people’s meetings were.

Bloom was shocked some time later to find a message on her husband’s phone – she had taken to checking it by then – from a man who her husband swore had moved away and was no longer part of the club reading. But he was.

Looking back, I remember little clues that all was not well in my mother’s brain as dementia also began to take hold. She forgot some words, but replaced the wrong word with the right one with such ease that you almost didn’t notice.