What are stages of progressing Alzheimer's disease?

Like any other disease, Alzheimer's has its signs and symptoms at every stage of progressing. Learn about the changes in people’s behavior and perception during the certain stage of the disease.

Being neurological disease, Alzheimer's develops gradually, quite slowly and often unnoticeable at the beginning stage. That is why it’s so difficult to catch a disease at the early stages of Alzheimers.

Lasting for a several years it causes changes in almost all spheres of brain’s normal functioning: people face troubles with remembering things, speaking and writing correctly, doing daily routine and managing simple problems.

Medicine distinguishes 5 main stages of Alzheimer's disease where each stage characterizes by the certain clear symptoms:

- Preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease – the first and earliest stage;

- Mild cognitive impairment – second stage of Alzheimer's development;

- Mild dementia – the thirds stage, which already requires help of other people during doing daily routine;

- Moderate dementia – the fourth stage where the patients often cannot manage themselves without help of others;

- Severe dementia – the last stage, where people becomes unable to live normal life and require daily medical help in clinic.

For your better understanding we’ll describe in detail what happens during each of Alzheimer's stage.

Preclinical Alzheimer's disease

Like many other serious diseases, Alzheimer's starts way earlier than its symptoms show themselves. But even when sings of disorder becomes noticeable, early stages of Alzheimers disease are often mistaken for typical, age-related changes. Therefore, this disease can develop itself for years or even decades without person being aware of it.

The start of Alzheimer's can be detected only with the help of special clinical equipment. The method identifies abnormal amount of so-called amyloid beta – the substance which is directly connected to Alzheimer's.

Mild cognitive impairment

This stage (called MCI) characterizes by noticeable slight changes in memory and other cognitive functions. These changes have certain impact on effectiveness of daily routine, such as speaking, doing job, supporting social contacts, losing things, forgetting about meetings, etc. Having MCI stage of disease, people face difficulties with correct judgment and decision-making. They do not realize own unreasonable or illogical steps but people around start noticing these changes.

It is needed to be said that not everybody who show symptoms of mild cognitive impairment do have Alzheimer's disease. Sometimes it could be just a temporary disorder, caused by another disease or by life circumstances.

Mild dementia due to Alzheimer's disease

Mild dementia stage makes it obvious that person does have Alzheimer's disease.

It is still not the end stage Alzheimers has but symptoms become more severe and brain’s functioning decreases significantly.

At this stage people often face:

1. Forgetting recently said or done things.

People experience loss of memory, especially when it comes to recently learned information.

2. Mood swings and changes in personality.

Being affected by Alzheimer's disease, people tend to withdraw themselves from company of other people; they feel fear, depression, unreasonable changes in mood during the day.

They complain on decreasing ability to concentrate and doing calculations.

3. Troubles with completing daily tasks. Following plans and schedules become more and more difficult due to incorrect perception of passage of time.

4. Explanations and thoughts expression become a challenge.

It’s getting really hard to find proper words to express own impressions or explain themselves. The same troubles appear with writing.

5. Misplacing items and getting belongings lost.

People at this stage of Alzheimer's disease often forget where they put own personal stuff. They start to put things at unusual locations, forget belongings at public places.