4. Problems with the orientation to time and place
These patients have disturbances in balance, coordination, and orientation. For example, they may fall during walking or spill things. They don’t feel the clothes on their bodies during clothing. They become disoriented to time and place.
Later in the disease, patients with Alzheimer’s may have problems in reading, writing, speech, and recognition. They suffer during thinking in common words. They also make more errors during speaking and writing. Also, they experience difficulties during reading. The affection of these skills occurs later in the disease because Alzheimer’s affects the brain areas responsible for them later in the disease course.
With disease progression, Alzheimer’s represents another problem where the patient can’t communicate or express that he suffers from pain, such as dental pain. Also, he can’t complain if he has a symptom of other diseases. Also, it will be difficult for him to follow a management plan or notice or describe an adverse effect of a medication.
As we said before, Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic disease that starts gradually and worsens over a long period. Due to this chronic nature, the course of Alzheimer’s disease passes through four stages.
Alzheimer’s disease starts mild then becomes moderate, then progresses to the advanced or severe stage. Before these stages, there is a transition stage between natural aging changes and Alzheimer’s disease, and it is called pre-dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
⇒ Now, let’s discuss stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
