This is Part 4 of The University of Queensland Brain Institute’s Brain Series on HelloCare
It is often helpful to categorise dementia into stages of severity to help doctors formulate a treatment plan, and for the person and their family to consider options for care. Dementia is often divided into early, middle and late stages, but medical professionals use a more detailed seven-stage scale, based on a person’s symptoms and assessment of cognitive decline.
Not all of these signs are always present, since dementia can be caused by many underlying conditions, but they represent the typical progression, particularly of the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease.
Normal, no obvious signs, although brain changes may be occurring
No noticeable symptoms different to normal ageing. Brain imaging may reveal plaques or degeneration.
Mild cognitive deficits – increased forgetfulness or disorientation, difficulty finding words. Loved ones begin to notice decline.
Memory of recent events affected; difficulty with complex tasks and managing personal affairs; may be in denial or withdrawn from family. Decline is obvious to a doctor. Family and friends notice symptoms.
Major memory lapses, including significant life events; needs help with daily activities such as dressing or preparing meals; can no longer
manage personal affairs.
Can no longer care for self; starts to forget names of family members; difficulty finishing tasks; speech affected; incontinence, depression, agitation, delusions may be evident.
Full time care is needed; loss of speech; requires assistance with all daily activities, including eating, bathing, toileting; may lose the ability to walk.
Because dementia is caused by many different underlying conditions, progression will vary. A person’s age, physical health and cognitive reserve – how resilient someone is to brain changes – will also affect how fast the disease progresses.
The average time from the appearance of obvious symptoms until death is about 8-10 years for Alzheimer’s disease; 4-8 years for Lewy-body and frontotemporal dementias; and 5 years for vascular dementia.
People may live 20 years or more with dementia, depending on its cause and the age, health and genetics of the person diagnosed. Dementia reduces life expectancy and is not often listed as the direct cause of death. Death is typically caused by complications related to the loss of brain function – infections such as pneumonia (accounting for two-thirds of cases), malnutrition, dehydration or falls.
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This article is spot on in regard to my own father. First symptoms noted late 2011. Diagnosed with frontotemperal dementia a couple of years later. Died late 2017. 6 years. Pneumonia took him out, after becoming debilitated and emaciated from cachexia (no appetite, poor diet). He weighed 44 kgs just before he died (6 feet tall!). Watching him slowly starving to death was so cruel. In the end, the respiratory infection he caught in his last fortnight (which was not treated until too late by his doctor), developed into pneumonia and he slipped away into an unconscious state 4 days before he died. Perhaps that was a blessing for him, as he at least had no pain, (except for when he coughed) in those last days. So mercifully, he had none of the suffering of someone in the last painful days with cancer. His Nursing Home Care was OK, but could have been better with higher staffing levels, as usual.