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Glam Journal

Can dementia change your eye color?

Author

Ava White

Updated on March 05, 2026

Can dementia change your eye color?

Many people with Alzheimer’s disease have visual problems, such as changes in color vision, and past studies have shown retinal and other changes in their eyes.

Can you tell if someone has dementia by their eyes?

Staring With ‘Reduced Gaze’ and Trouble Reading. “Reduced gaze” is the clinical term for the dementia symptom that alters people’s ability to move their eyes normally. “We all move our eyes and track with them frequently,” says Rankin. But people showing early signs of dementia look like they’re staring a lot.

Does dementia affect the eyes?

However, people with dementia can also have visual difficulties because the dementia affects the parts of their brain that handle visual information coming from the eyes. This means they will have visual problems, but have healthy eyes.

How do eyes show early signs of Alzheimer’s?

Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships. For some people, having vision problems is a sign of Alzheimer’s. This may lead to difficulty with balance or trouble reading. They may also have problems judging distance and determining color or contrast, causing issues with driving.

How does Alzheimer’s affect eyes?

People with Alzheimer’s disease may especially have problems recognizing colors in the blue-violet range. Decreased peripheral vision: It’s common for people with dementia to have decreased peripheral vision. Reduced side vision can lead to a variety of challenges for people with Alzheimer’s.

What are the very early signs of dementia?

Common early symptoms of dementia

  • memory loss.
  • difficulty concentrating.
  • finding it hard to carry out familiar daily tasks, such as getting confused over the correct change when shopping.
  • struggling to follow a conversation or find the right word.
  • being confused about time and place.
  • mood changes.

What is the most obvious problem during the beginning stages of dementia?

It occurs as a result of problems with the blood vessels that involve the brain. While people with this form of dementia may have difficulty with recall, their most obvious symptoms are likely to be trouble with organization, reasoning, concentration, and thinking quickly.

What is Benson’s syndrome?

Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), also known as Benson’s syndrome, is a rare degenerative condition in which damage occurs at the back (posterior region) of the brain. In the vast majority of people, the cause of PCA is Alzheimer’s disease.

What are signs of perceptual distortions that may occur in dementia?

How can dementia affect perception? Dementia can interrupt or slow this process down, which changes how a person understands the world around them. Damage to the eyes or parts of the brain may cause misperceptions, misidentifications, hallucinations, delusions and time-shifting.

What is PCA dementia?

Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a rare form of dementia that usually begins by affecting a person’s vision. It is also known as Benson’s syndrome.