Late Dementia Stages

Late Stages of Dementia

Stage 6

During stage 6, the patient will have undergone a severe decline including worsened memory loss, personality changes and will need extensive help with daily activities including 24 hour supervision. Hallmarks of this stage include:

• lost awareness of most recent experiences and events
• unawareness of surroundings
• remembers personal history imperfectly or not at all but can usually remember own name
• occasionally forget name of spouse or primary care giver but can tell familiar from unfamiliar faces
• needs help getting dressed – making errors such as putting pajamas over clothing or shoes on wrong feet
• disruption of normal sleep/wake cycle
• needs help with toilet use
• increasing episodes of incontinence
• significant personality changes including suspiciousness, delusions, hallucinations or compulsive behaviors
• tendency to wander and become lost

Stage 7

Stage 7 indicates an extreme decline and is considered to be the last stage of dementia as patients lose the ability to respond to environment, speak and move. Most patients who die with dementia will have contracted a condition such as pneumonia because of the inability to move allowing infection to set in. This stage of dementia includes mostly physical decline such as:

• lost capacity for recognizable speech
• assistance required with eating and toiletry – constant incontinence
• lost ability to walk, sit, smile, hold head up
• reflexes return to infancy such as the plantar reflex
• swallowing is impaired

Though Alzheimer’s disease and other progressive dementia disorders are considered to be fatal, with appropriate intervention during the early stages of Alzheimer’s or other dementia, the life and function may be extended through recent medical advances including a number of new prescription medications. For this reason it is important for people in the early stages of dementia to seek medical help as function can be protected and retained but it generally cannot be restored once it is lost.