The Three Stages of Alzheimer's Disease

The Three Stages of Alzheimer's Disease
One of the most common forms of dementia, Alzheimer's
disease stages progress towards the death of the patient.
This degenerative, debilitating neurological disorder is
thus far incurable.

Affecting the lives of anyone who encounters the patient,
the effects of the disease can be draining for the
caregiver as well as the patient. Three Alzheimer's disease
stages are generally agreed to exist, though some break
these three down into substages.

Forgetting names, including those belonging to people and
things are commonly seen in the early stage of this
disorder - and this is when most patients are diagnosed.
The first thing to go, studies have shown, is the memory of
smells. These memory lapses increase in frequency along
with the progression of the disease.

In the early stage, the patient is often aware of his or
her symptoms, but will often be in denial and try to find
ways to cover for their memory losses. This can lead to
stress as they may be angry with themselves for these
lapses. It can also be because they know and fear what
awaits them, for which surely they cannot be blamed.

In the early Alzheimer's disease stage, the patient will
have memory lapses though while not insignificant, do not
yet prevent them from going about their daily life. The
early Alzheimer's disease stage can last quite some time,
even years.

Upon arriving at the middle stage of the disease, the
patient will have some noticeable memory and cognitive
problems, as well as personality changes. The afflicted
person will often repeat questions, lose things, be
disoriented and have ever more common disruptions in their
mental faculties. They will experience a loss of their
ability to understand or respond to language, both written
and verbal. Anger often crops up during this stage, and the
frustration of the sufferer is understandable in this
Alzheimer's disease stage.

Behavior changes are seen frequently in this stage of
Alzheimer's disease, and there will be a sharp drop in
their ability to take care of themselves - they will begin
to need help taking care of daily tasks like bathing and
eating.

The last Alzheimer's disease stage is characterized by a
near complete loss of the ability to function mentally and
physically. The patient is essentially unrecognizable as
the person they were before the disease took hold of them
due to the extensive brain damage which has occurred by
this time.

Care is needed nearly around the clock in this final
Alzheimer's disease stage, which leads to the caregiver
being utterly exhausted. Once reaching this stage, the
majority of patients will be receiving care from
professionals at a hospital or hospice. This is a difficult
decision to be made by the patient's loved ones. but
continuing home care will not change the progress of the
disease, and will almost certainly have a deleterious
effect on the caregiver at this point.

Each Alzheimer's disease stage has several substages, but
the prognosis in Alzheimer's, sadly is always the same.
Living one day at a time is often the smartest strategy for
caregivers to cope with the heavy burden of caring for a
patient through the progression of Alzheimer's disease
stages.

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