What are the Stages of Dementia?
Stages of Dementia gets used a lot when people talk about ageing and certain diseases. A common misconception of what is dementia is that dementia itself is a disease. In fact it is set of symptoms that can be caused by a number of disorders. The most common and known cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. Also brain damage and stroke can be a cause of dementia as it will be seen in the stages of dementia.
Dementia symptoms can range from mild memory loss to severe difficulties that may make one hard to manage daily activities. The symptoms are best grouped into stages which can thus help doctors to take care of dementia patients.
The following are some of the stages of dementia:
No Impairment Stage
At this very stage, there are no obvious signs that one is suffering from dementia. One will still be able to function independently without help from others.
Very Mild stage
Here dementia signs are barely noticeable and it simply appear to be a kind of forgetfulness like an ageing person. For instance misplacing something and find it later after some searching
Mild Stage
This is the third stage where patients can do their basic things of daily living according to Shah meaning that they can still perform their duties well without any difficulty.
Some of the symptoms of dementia at these stage include:
- Confusion
- Some forgetfulness and memory loss
- Repetition
- Trouble managing medication
- Loss of concentration
- Loss of items
- Failure in managing your finances
Moderate Stage
This is a stage where patients have trouble in doing basic things that they always did such as clothing or cooking.
Other symptoms that are at these stage include:
- Incontinence, that is, trouble in holding urine
- Increase in memory loss and forgetfulness
- Inability to use the right words and phrases
- Increased social withdrawal
- Difficulty in doing a challenging mathematics
Moderately Severe Stage
This is a stage where the dementia patient needs assistance for his/her day to day activities.
At these stage, the following are some of the symptoms:
- Confused about location or even chain of events of the day
- Trouble with less challenging math
- Increase in memory loss including his her own home address or contacts or even other personal details
- Needing help in choosing clothing depending on the climate
Severe Stage
At this stage of dementia, the caregivers will have a lot of work to do as they have to perform the day-to-day activities.
At this severe stage, the following are some of the symptoms:
- Change in personality and behaviour
- Requiring help with toileting such as flushing and wiping and bathing
- Inability to recall the names of the family members including the loved ones but can remember the faces
- Wandering and becoming lost if not taken care of or supervised
- Needing a lot of help in dressing
Very Severe Stage
This is the last stage of dementia.
Here the patient is at the maximum point of sickness and the following are some of the symptoms:
- Lack of control during urination
- Loss of awareness of the surrounding
- Require help in eating
- Loss of muscle control to smile, eat and get support in order to walk
- Lack language skills.
From the above stages of dementia It is important to know that they are fluid. You need to use them to plan future changes or occurrences and work closely with your doctor for you to get early treatment before it is too late.