What happens to people with dementia as the disease progresses?
Every person is unique and dementia affects people differently. No two people will develop the same difficulties in exactly the same way. It is not just the brain damage that determines how dementia affects someone, but also other factors including an individual's personality, life course, general health and functioning, and living environment.
Dementia has stages
Dementia symptoms can range from minor memory loss to severe difficulties in memory and thinking that make it impossible to manage daily activities without help. It can be helpful to view dementia as a series of stages to understand the illness. However, it is important to realize that this only provides a rough guide to the progress of dementia. Not all people with dementia will have all symptoms and some of the symptoms may only appear at one stage of the disease.
In the early stage of the disease, people with dementia may have memory problems, become disoriented with respect to time, lost in familiar places and show difficulties making decisions.
As dementia progresses to the middle stage, people with dementia may become very forgetful and in need of help with daily activities such as shopping, dressing, and washing.
In the late stage, people with dementia may not recognize relatives or friends anymore may display changes in behaviour that can be upsetting and distressing to the person with dementia and those around them.
