Progression

This description of signs is intended only as a guide. Stages often overlap and symptoms may occur out of sequence.

Early Stage

• Forgetfulness/memory impairment
• Decline in personal hygiene
• Automobile and/or household accidents
• Language difficulty/searching for words
• Impairment in judgment
• Hoarding food or lack of food in pantry
• Mood swings
• Accusations or paranoia
• Increasing inability to handle routine tasks (balancing a checkbook, forgetting appointments)
• Lack of spontaneity or lessening of initiative
• Disorientation of time and place
• Depression and terror
• Difficulty functioning in established social circles

Middle Stage

• Wandering and repetitive behavior
• Increasing disorientation or forgetfulness
• Agitation and restlessness, especially at night
• Slower speech and verbal understanding
• Inability to think abstractly
• Striking out verbally or physically
• More aggressive behavior in response to frustration

Advanced Stage

• Disorientation
• Complete dependence
• Developing inability to recognize either themselves (in a mirror) or other people about them
• Various forms of speech impairment to complete muteness
• Problems with swallowing
• Developing a need to put everything in their mouths
• Developing a necessity to touch everything in sight
• Becoming emaciated
• Loss of control of all body functions
• Complete loss of almost all intellectual abilities