Your life does not change now that someone you love has a diagnosis. Tomorrow will be much the same as yesterday.
It’s hard to predict how quickly dementia will progress, however dementia mostly progresses slowly but the progress differs for each person. Age, physical health, the type of dementia and other factors, including how you are managing, influence the nature of symptoms and how fast dementia progresses.
How long people will live after diagnosis depends on how old they are, how severe the dementia is at the time of diagnosis, what type of dementia they have and their gender, with women tending to live longer with dementia than men. Types and severity of other medical conditions also influence how long a person will live.
In general, dementia that starts at a younger age can progress more quickly. Those who are diagnosed before age 65 typically live around 7-10 years after symptoms begin, though this can vary a lot from person to person.
Although progression varies for each person, dementia tends to follow a relatively predictable pattern – usually called ‘stages’. Some staging of the disease is simply described as early, middle and late (or advanced) dementia. There are other more detailed ways of staging how far the dementia has progressed and you can read a summary here.
It is important to remember that there are treatments for dementia and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can support wellbeing, may slow symptom progression and will also help you as a carer maintain or improve your physical and mental health. Key strategies include exercise, eating a healthy diet, managing other health conditions, keeping socially active and importantly, getting adequate, good quality rest and sleep as well as taking regular breaks from caring is crucial. For more information go to section four of this website, supporting wellbeing .
Decline and getting support
Over time, people with dementia experience more symptoms and have trouble doing things for themselves and will need more support. See the page Dealing with symptoms at home .
As the disease spreads, dementia interferes with how the brain controls the body. This can lead to poor coordination and balance, difficulty walking and increased risk of falls. It can also result in incontinence. People with dementia become increasingly frail and may have trouble swallowing or breathing. They usually pass away because of medical complications or an infection such as pneumonia.
Planning for the future is worthwhile to have the right supports in place. Read Section 1.10 Plan for now and the future. While this can feel challenging, planning can help you feel better prepared for the future, more in control and can make things easier for you.
Also read the section Making plans and decisions .
