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The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer that is incurable. This disease starts with mild forgetfulness which then further leads to neurological impairment and results in death.The ability to create, remember, reason and learn is destroyed by the structural and chemical changes in the brain. The system fails to function due to death of critical cells and drastic personality loss. The progression or cause of the disease is not well understood and there is no complete cure for it yet. These stages and symptoms of Alzheimer are only a general guide and the stages may vary from one person to another. Pre-dementia, early, moderate and advanced are the common Alzheimer’s stages that are generally followed as a guide to categorize the patients with Alzheimer.
Pre-dementia is the first and the foremost stage of Alzheimer. At this stage, the symptoms first observed are always mistaken to be age or stress related. These symptoms gradually affect the daily activities in life. Mostly noticeable symptom is memory loss; this can be related to difficulty in remembering or recalling facts that are learned recently and the lack of ability to acquire or get hold of new information. Difficulties at this stage would be in attentiveness, planning, abstract thinking, flexibility and semantic memory. Apathy is the most important neuropsychiatric symptom at this stage and in other Alzheimer’s stages as well.
Next is the early stage, in which the progression of impairment of memory and learning occurs. Though the memory loss has progressed, there will be difficulties only in newly learned information or facts. Alzheimer does not impair the older memories to a greater extent. Language problems do occur as the semantic memory is impaired; this can be observed in their difficulty in oral and written language. People at this stage may require assistance for the cognitive activities.
Moderate is the next stage of Alzheimer. As the cognitive impairment progresses still more than the early stage, patients will have difficulty in performing common daily living activities. At this stage, speech difficulties can become prominent. Reading and writing ability is also lost day by day. Motor sequences are not coordinated due to progression of disease and hence the person is at the risk of falling. Memory loss worsens, and previously intact long term memory start to deteriorate. Neuropsychiatric and behavioral changes start to take place here.
Advanced stage is the last Alzheimer’s stage in which the patient becomes fully dependent on others for their daily activities. The progression of language skills inability leads to complete loss of speech. At this stage patients understand and return emotional signals rather than verbal language due to loss of language skills. Aggressiveness can be more severe than in the early stages, but extreme frustration and exhaustion is more common. Even the simplest tasks can only be done with the assistance and the patient becomes bedridden.
The final stage after all these Alzheimer’s stages is death. Death is not caused by the disease itself, but by external factors like pneumonia or infection of pressure ulcers.
