The first stage (1 to 3 years) is a period of mild dementia. The patient is unable to analyze, think and judge events, and has difficulty in dealing with complex problems; he/she is inattentive to work or household chores, unable to carry out shopping and financial affairs independently, and has difficulty in socializing; although he/she can still do familiar daily tasks, he/she shows bewilderment and difficulty in understanding new things, is emotionally indifferent, occasionally irritated, and often paranoid; he/she develops Temporal orientation disorder, orientation to places and people, difficulty in orientation to geographical locations, poor visuospatial ability of complex structures; low verbal vocabulary, difficulty in naming.
The second stage (2-10 years) is the moderate dementia stage. The symptoms of dementia include severe impairment of distant and proximal memory, reduced visual-spatial ability of simple structures, impaired orientation to time and place; severe impairment in processing problems and identifying similarities and differences in things; inability to perform outdoor activities independently, needing help in dressing, personal hygiene and maintaining personal appearance; inability to perform calculations; various neurological symptoms, including aphasia, dysfunction and disorientation; change from indifference to The patient’s emotions change from indifference to restlessness, often walking incessantly, and urinary incontinence can be seen.
The third stage (8 to 12 years) is the severe dementia stage. The patient is completely dependent on the caregiver and has severe memory loss, with only fragments of memory remaining; he/she cannot take care of himself/herself in daily life, is incontinent, shows silence and rigidity of the limbs, and has a positive cone bundle sign. Eventually coma and death are usually due to complications such as infection.
Patients with Alzheimer’s disease go from mild memory and cognitive impairment to a final vegetative state for years or even decades, which is a painful process for both the patient and the family. Therefore, elderly people and their families should be alert to the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, and detect them in time to treat them as much as possible.