Why Women Are Diagnosed Late with Dementia: Noting Early Symptoms

Women are often the backbone of everyday life, delicately handling the daily symphony of work and home. They are expected to hold everything together, emotionally, socially, and financially, and are rarely allowed to fall apart. But when they develop conditions such as dementia, families may tend to overlook.

Dismissing women’s dementia symptoms as “overreaction” isn’t new. When lapses begin to interfere with responsibilities, they are frequently attributed to stress, mood, or hormonal imbalances.

The real tragedy lies in the delay this creates; years of valuable intervention are lost, not because of ill intent, but because of a lack of understanding of female physiology.

The Camouflage of Responsibilities

As women approach menopause, estrogen levels in the body begin to decline. Estrogen plays a vital role in maintaining neural health, supporting brain function, synaptic activity, and protecting against inflammation.

With its absence, the brain becomes more vulnerable to cognitive decline and may face a higher risk of developing dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders. 

Generally speaking, women are conditioned to care for everyone else first. So when the first cognitive “hitches” appear, many instinctively try to hide them.

They lean on rigid routines and muscle memory, pushing through confusion to keep homes running as expected, which only worsens their condition.

Medical Bias and Misdiagnosis

Gender bias in healthcare has long been documented worldwide, and dementia care is no exception.

Women in their late 50s or 60s who show signs such as forgetfulness, irritability, or withdrawal are often attributed to menopause, anxiety, or midlife stress, rather than being carefully evaluated for underlying cognitive changes.

A key challenge is that menopause and neurodegenerative conditions share overlapping symptoms, particularly emotional confusion and cognitive changes, which leads to diagnostic confusion in clinical settings.

In India, where mental health concerns are often minimised, early cognitive symptoms are frequently described as “tension” or stress.

Viewing cognitive changes solely through a social lens delays neurological assessment; as a result, many families seek medical care only after significant functional decline has occurred.

Spotting Red Flags for Dementia in Women 

Early dementia in women often presents as emotional changes and disruptions in well-established routines.

A homemaker may begin forgetting steps in familiar tasks, while a working professional may struggle with recall, task completion, and increased difficulty managing everyday responsibilities, often increasing stress to perform well with their peers. 

Socially, vibrant participation in activities they once loved reduces, giving way to withdrawal, as conversations start to feel cognitively loud and exhausting.

Even personal routines and communication patterns may deteriorate, with women who previously had strong verbal communication becoming less expressive or more withdrawn.

These changes often reflect disruption in cognitive processes that support routine, social engagement, and daily functioning, rather than isolated lapses in habit.

The Importance of Early Intervention

Late diagnosis steals more than time; the ingrained misogyny and stigma hurt almost every woman affected. By the time many women are diagnosed, they have already lost precious time and functionality.

Early detection, however, may allow women to participate in care planning, organise finances, make lifestyle changes, and be heard in shaping the life ahead of them.

Signs such as forgetfulness, confusion, and personality changes in mothers and grandmothers should not be accepted as a natural fading away.

Recognising them early is the only way to ensure that the women who spent their lives shaping familiesand their own lives are not forgotten when they most need to be remembered.

Authored by Neha Sinha, Dementia Specialist, CEO, and Co-founder of Epoch Elder Care