Stage 7: Very severe cognitive decline They may have difficulty eating and swallowing, and they might resist eating, resulting in weight loss or dehydration. In this stage, a person also becomes more susceptible to infections.
Stage 7: Late-Stage Dementia
This final category of dementia includes one stage. Stage 7, very severe cognitive decline lasts an average of 2.5 years. A person in this stage usually has no ability to speak or communicate and requires assistance with most activities, including walking.
Stage seven is the final stage of the dementia progression. At this stage, most people will have no ability to speak or communicate. They will require assistance with most daily activities including walking, dressing, bathing, and toileting. This stage requires 24-hour care and assistance.
The 7-Minute Screen The 7-Minute Screen (7MS), developed by Solomon for rapid diagnosis of probable AD cases, comprises 4 tests (that is, ori- entation, memory, clock drawing, and verbal fluency) and takes an average of 7 minutes and 42 seconds to administer (67).
In the middle stage of dementia, symptoms become more noticeable and the person will need more support in managing daily life. This stage of dementia is often the longest. On average it lasts about two to four years.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
Because people in stage seven often lose psychomotor capabilities, they may be unable to walk or require significant assistance with ambulation. On average, this stage lasts two and a half years. Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disease that gradually worsens over a period of four to 20 years.
Stage 3: Noticeable Memory Difficulties
Common difficulties in this stage go beyond forgetting names and misplacing objects.
If the person's mental abilities or behaviour changes suddenly over a day or two, they may have developed a separate health problem. For example, a sudden deterioration or change may be a sign that an infection has led to delirium. Or it may suggest that someone has had a stroke.
This can be exhausting and often leaves the person feeling like they haven't slept at all, so they are very tired and sleepy during the day. It can be hard to stay awake during the day after a poor night's sleep but, if possible, it's best to try to limit sleep during the day to small bursts or 'catnaps'.
Signs of the final stages of dementia include some of the following: Being unable to move around on one's own. Being unable to speak or make oneself understood. Eating problems such as difficulty swallowing.
Hoarding for a person with dementia may be more likely to happen in the early and middle stages of dementia and often stems from trying to have some control in their lives. People with dementia may be driven to search or rummage for something that they believe is missing.
The most common cause of death among Alzheimer's patients is aspiration pneumonia. This happens when, due to difficulty in swallowing caused by the disease, an individual inadvertently inhales food particles, liquid, or even gastric fluids.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
The SAGE test is a 12-question exam that measures cognitive functioning and may help a physician determine whether Alzheimer's is present.
The Mini-Cog consisted of a clock drawing task and three-item recall that takes three to five minutes to administer. A tester recited three words -- apple, penny, and table -- and had the patient recall them later.
People with dementia differ in the patterns of problems they have, and the speed with which their abilities deteriorate. A person with dementia's abilities may change from day to day, or even within the same day.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease causes a type of dementia that gets worse unusually fast. More common causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer's, dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia, typically progress more slowly. Through a process scientists don't yet understand, misfolded prion protein destroys brain cells.
Don't correct, contradict, blame or insist. Reminders are rarely kind. They tell a person how disabled they are – over and over again. People living with dementia say and do normal things for someone with memory impairment.
The five-minute cognitive test (FCT) was designed to capture deficits in five domains of cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, language fluency, time orientation, visuospatial function, and executive function.
Many people affected by dementia are concerned that they may inherit or pass on dementia. The majority of dementia is not inherited by children and grandchildren. In rarer types of dementia there may be a strong genetic link, but these are only a tiny proportion of overall cases of dementia.
Patient assessment tools:
The GPCOG is a screening tool for cognitive impairment designed for use in primary care and is available in multiple languages. Mini-Cog - The Mini-Cog is a 3-minute test consisting of a recall test for memory and a scored clock-drawing test.