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stages

SuddenlyCaregiving
SuddenlyCaregiving Member Posts: 5
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in I Am a Caregiver (General Topics)

I know there isn't a clear cut line between stages of dementia, but how do you know if someone is in advanced as opposed to mid stage, etc?

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  • towhee
    towhee Member Posts: 475
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    Basically, it is what they are able to do. How they are able to complete (or not) their activities of daily living and their physical capabilities such as walking or incontinence. As you said though, people lose different abilities at different times, one reason is that they have different physical and mental abilities coming into dementia. Someone who had continence problems before dementia, might be totally urine incontinent before showing other advanced symptoms. Usually when we say someone is incontinent from dementia it means that they have lost the ability to know that they need to go instead of just the physical ability to hold their urine long enough. This chart might help. dementia---fast-scale.pdf (hartfordhealthcare.org)

  • SuddenlyCaregiving
    SuddenlyCaregiving Member Posts: 5
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    Thank you. That helps me understand the stages. It doesn't help me much with figuring out where my dad is on it but that really doesn't matter much in the long run, does it? Right not we're just living in the moment and enjoying the good ones. Is it wrong to wish for him to have a nice easy heart attack or something to take him before he reaches those higher stages? Or does everyone wish for that?

  • Ed1937
    Ed1937 Member Posts: 5,091
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    You said " Is it wrong to wish for him to have a nice easy heart attack or something to take him before he reaches those higher stages? Or does everyone wish for that?" It is not wrong, and most of us wish for that. Last June, my wife passed from a gastrointestinal bleed. I was, and still am thankful that she did not experience stage 7. She was well into stage 6 when she died.

  • mommyandme (m&m)
    mommyandme (m&m) Member Posts: 1,468
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    edited April 2023

    Suddenly, welcome but also very sorry.

    Often our LOs will show decline in an ability but then bounce back to the baseline of that skill we recognize. I referred to it as “two steps back and one step forward.” Might be stage four in one ADL and stage five in another and so on, until they don’t bounce back. The worst example of their decline is probably the stage you can assign. Just my opinion from my experiences. There are many variables to each of our individual journeys even though there are common themes to this disgusting disease.

    I think what is commonly expressed in this forum is wishing something else would take our LO, other than dementia. Something quicker, less painful for all. That was me too. Unfortunately that something came for my mom, who was late stage 7, in the form of COVID. I wasn’t ready and felt she wasn’t either, at the time. Obviously she was ready cause she left. I’d kept her free from covid for 2.5 years, until I couldn’t. It was a blessing I suppose, yet I still struggle. It’s all relative of course. The struggle will end when its suppose to is my take away.

    Here’s another link to a few of the scales: https://www.dementiacarecentral.com/aboutdementia/facts/stages/

    Again, so sorry for this season in you and your LO’s lives.

  • BookBuffBex
    BookBuffBex Member Posts: 40
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    https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/170705#Comment_170705

    No, not wrong. One of my biggest fears is that my mom will live another 10 years with her ALZ/dementia getting worse. She prides herself on her intellect and if she could actually remember that she has ALZ, she'd want to die. I think it's normal to not want our loved ones to suffer.

  • SuddenlyCaregiving
    SuddenlyCaregiving Member Posts: 5
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    Thank you for sharing. I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to feel so everything feels awful.

  • GothicGremlin
    GothicGremlin Member Posts: 874
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    Hi SuddenlyCaregiving - I've been using the chart that mommyandme uses (dementiacentral). It's a good reference. I also use the FAST scale. It's about mid-way through the page that I linked to.

    My sister is at the tail end of stage 6, beginning of stage 7. To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about death. Quicker? Slower? I don't want Peggy to experience all of the badness of stage 7, but I don't want her to die either. She still has good days - many of them, actually. On the other hand, her bad days are really bad. So, I haven't come anywhere near resolving how I feel about it, but I do think it's completely normal to think these things.

Commonly Used Abbreviations


DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
Read more

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