What You Need to Know About Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

Dementia is defined as a severe impairment of cognitive functions such as thinking, memory and personality.

Alzheimer's Disease is defined as a progressive impairment of memory, reasoning and judgment that is related to cellular changes within the brain and that leads to loss of independence in activities of daily living. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and is commonly misbelieved to be caused by the loss of oxygen or hardening of the arteries.

Dementia comes on slowly and worsens over time. It is usually irreversible, depending on the cause of the dementia.

Too often people and caregivers focus their attention on the disorder and has prevented them from appreciating the experience of the person with dementia. Dementia challenges your assumptions about what it means to be a person.

The description of dementia as a living death is accurate in reflecting the sense of bereavement experienced by care givers, weither they are family or in a facility. The also have the common conception of the person with dementia is not really alive or not fully a human being. People with dementia should always be treated with respect and should always be treated as they are human.

There are four stages of senile dementia of the Alzheimer type, and I will cover them here. Mild, moderate, severe and finally terminal stage.

Stage 1 - mild dementia

In mild dementia the resident may appear normal, and can function with minimal assistance and supervision. The affected person is usually living at home. Symptoms of stage one include gradual short term memory loss, difficulty concentrating on what they are doing or what they are talking about or what they are being told. They have poor judgment and decreased interest in environment and social affairs. They become moody and often blame others for their mistakes and problems.

Stage 2 - moderate dementia