Exploring sensory and motor deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease from the perspective of primary and secondary caregivers

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are one of the most debilitating and burdensome health conditions, not only for the diagnosed individual, but also for their family and friends. In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation that sensory and motor deficits are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The overarching goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of sensory and motor deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease through semi-structured interviews with primary and secondary caregivers. This project is in part motivated by the Supervisor’s own experiences as a secondary caregiver for a parent who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. With this project, we are interested in understanding whether sensory or motor impairments played a role in seeking medical attention, were potentially ignored and attributed to normal aging processes, and the awareness around the relationship of these impairments, in addition to memory ones. We will use the information from the lived experiences of these caregivers to help guide future experiments in our lab, as sensorimotor tasks appear to be particularly well-suited for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, as it has been reported that sensory and motor deficits can precede the onset of any memory impairments by 5 to 15 years.