Different stages of dementia

Every person’s experience will be different and not every person will go through every stage, but it can be helpful to categorise dementia into three progressive stages:
• Early dementia
• Moderate dementia
• Advanced dementia

Early dementia

This is sometimes only realised after a diagnosis, with symptoms often put down to age, stress or being tired. It can include a change in personality, a loss of drive and purpose, poor lack in judgment, repeating themselves or irritability. Many of these symptoms can of course be down to other factors, therefore it’s important to seek medical advice and support if you’re concerned.

Moderate dementia

At this stage, symptoms are more obvious and starting to impact a person’s day to day life and can be disabling. This can include being forgetful of recent events and although their memory of the distant past is better, details are missing or confused. Getting lost if away from familiar surroundings, forgetting items on the stove, seeing or hearing things that aren’t there, or becoming angry or upset through frustration can be common occurrences.

Advanced dementia

At this third and final stage, the person is severely disabled and needs high-level care. The person may be unable to remember things that happened only a few moments ago, such as having a meal. They may lose their ability to understand or use speech, be incontinent, have difficulty eating, difficulty walking or be unable to walk completely and be wheelchair or bed-bound. As a result other infections and illnesses may become more common such as urinary tract infections or pneumonia leading to a person passing away.

To understand more about dementia visit Dementia Australia