The progress of dementia differs for each person. Age, physical health, the type of dementia, the environment in which you live as well as many other factors, including how you are managing, influence the nature of symptoms and how 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 and may slow symptom progression. Key strategies include aerobic exercise and resistance training, following a Mediterranean or MIND diet, managing heart health, staying socially and mentally active, and using hearing aids or glasses if needed. For more information go to section four of this website, Supporting wellbeing.
Photo: Markus Winkler via Unsplash.
