The 7 Stages of Dementia: What to Expect

Dementia is marked by a severe decline in cognitive functions, such as thinking, reasoning, and remembering, to the extent that it interferes with the person’s daily life.

Understanding Dementia and Its Progression

Dementia typically affects older adults, but it is not a normal part of the aging process. While some amount of forgetfulness is normal with age, dementia is a severe disorder that can affect a person’s ability to function daily.

According to the National Institute on Aging, about one-third of all people above the age of 85 have some form of dementia. Dementia can stem from various causes, the most common being Alzheimer’s disease. Some of the other causes include Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia.

Dementia progresses in stages, ranging from mild to severe. In 1982, Dr. Barry Reisberg created the Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), which consists of seven stages, to help clinicians categorise the progression of dementia.

This article explores the seven stages of dementia, so you know what to expect if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with it.

The Seven Stages of Dementia

No cognitive decline
Very mild cognitive decline
Mild cognitive decline
Moderate cognitive decline
Moderately severe cognitive decline
Severe cognitive decline
Very severe cognitive decline

Stages 1 to 3 are the pre-dementia stages, whereas stages 4 to 7 are the dementia stages. Clinicians typically compare the person’s symptoms to the criteria listed for each stage and use their judgment to determine which stage the patient is at.

Stage 1: No Cognitive Decline

At this stage, the person can function normally and exhibits no signs of memory loss, confusion, or cognitive impairment. However, the structure and functioning of their brain may have started to deteriorate as the neurons in their brain start to lose connection with other brain cells and die.

Stage 2: Very Mild Cognitive Decline

The person starts to experience occasional lapses of memory, such as:

Forgetting where they keep familiar everyday objects
Forgetting names they once knew very well

At this stage, the symptoms are unlikely to affect the person’s work or social interactions. The symptoms may even be too mild to detect in a clinical interview with a healthcare provider, as the person may be able to adequately perform memory tests during the interview.

Stage 3: Mild Cognitive Decline

This is the stage at which cognitive impairment starts to become more noticeable to the patient, their friends, family members, and colleagues. The person may start to show symptoms such as:

Getting lost while walking or driving, particularly in unfamiliar places
Reading something and retaining very little of it
Forgetting the names of people they’ve just met
Losing items of importance or value
Having trouble concentrating and performing complex tasks
Experiencing increasing difficulty in social settings
Frequently forgetting words and the names of loved ones
Performing poorly at work to the extent that it becomes evident to colleagues

The person may start to feel anxious as their symptoms begin to

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