The parietal lobes are also commonly affected early in Alzheimer’s disease.  These regions of the brain are important for integrating information.  As such, it is damage to these lobes that can produce, apraxia (trouble with complex movements), agraphia (trouble with writing and spelling), agnosia (trouble with knowing what things are), aphasia (trouble with coming up with words and other features of speech), acalculia (trouble with calculations) and spatial disorientation (tendency to get lost).  It is some of these impairments that can be very disruptive to patients’ activities of daily living.

The frontal lobes are important for decision making and have a major role in personality.  They may also be affected in Alzheimer’s disease and when disordered the patients may begin to seem very unlike themselves.  Personality changes may occur early or late in Alzheimer’s disease, but when they occur, can be as equally devastating as memory loss.  Judgment and insight may also be affected by damage to the frontal lobes.

In summary, Alzheimer’s disease may be viewed as a “multi-focal” disorder as it affects the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes of the brain and causes multiple types of brain, and therefore cognitive dysfunction.