Nurses divide the disease into seven stages, but I've seen it divided into as few as three stages before. In the beginning stages of the disease, deficits in attention, concentration, orientation, memory and abstract reasoning are seen. Later, difficulties with language are common, Grant said. The patient must search their memory to find every word they speak, and they struggle to make sentences. Eventually, as the disease progresses and the body shuts down, the brain stops sending automatic signals to parts of the body.
Victims can no longer dress themselves, feed themselves or perform ordinary, everyday tasks.
Some lose their ability to walk. The average course of the disease occurs over an eight-year time span. Some may live with it as long as 20 years or more. Alzheimer's occurs when nerve cells that carry messages in the brain, particularly regions that store and retrieve memories, begin to waste away and die. Caring for a victim of Alzheimer's is a 24-hour task.