What can I expect with my loved one with Alzheimer’s disease?

While different people vary in how they experience their Alzheimer’s disease, there are three major stages of Alzheimer’s disease:  mild, moderate and severe.

In the early stages, most patients usually start showing signs of difficulty in areas such as:

• Memory for recent events:  forgetfulness, not remembering appointments or recent conversations, or people’s names

• Completing familiar tasks:  difficulty participating in a life-long hobby or using familiar appliances

• Completing tasks with multiple steps: difficulty following a recipe, balancing a checkbook, taking medications, or shopping

• Judgment, decision-making or problem solving: wearing clothing inappropriate for an outing or weather, or recklessly spending money

• Spatial ability and orientation:  following a map or direction, judging distances while driving, or getting lost in familiar places

• Language and communication:  trouble finding the right word, following a conversation or reading or writing

• Behavior and mood:  withdrawing from social interactions, feelings of anxiety or depression

Long-term memory such as memories from childhood and early adulthood are usually not affected until the very later stages of the disease.

Unfortunately, as the disease progresses, these signs do worsen over time.  Additionally, the person with Alzheimer’s disease will start having problems with their mood and behavior, and decreased ability to take care of themselves. Changes in your loved one’s behavior may be due to the disease itself, but can also be due simply to needs such as hunger, bathroom needs, other illness, changes in vision or hearing, pain or discomfort or medication side effects.