Expert: Mary Gordon - 11/19/2009

Question
How quickly can an 80 year old woman progress to a stage 7 dementia?  I was at her 80th birthday party just under one month ago, where she was quite cognizant and recognized all the guests, etc.  Now she is in the hospital and has been diagnosed with Stage 7 dementia - how is that even possible?  What other underlying causes/symptoms could cause her to progress so quickly?

Answer
Hi Kathi - a lot depends on what they think her cognitive impairment is from. What you are describing is certainly not typical of a progressive dementia such as Alzheimer's, which tends to have a slow steady progress. Dementia is not a diagnosis. It is a word like "fever" that describes a symptom. It essentially means the person is mentally impaired to the point they really can't function well. It does not tell you what the cause is of what you are seeing - and there is always an underlying disease or condition that has affected the brain.

It is possible that she has had strokes or other health problems that could affect cognition - i.e. she has had brain damage as a byproduct of something else that is going on. There is a long laundry list of things that can damage a person's brain, especially in the frail elderly who often have a constellation of complicated health concerns.  

It is also possible to have temporary delirium from health issues - i.e. for example, many elderly people can really be knocked back mentally from something as simple as a urinary tract infection, and once it is treated, they often recover some ground.

You need more information from the doctor on her overall health situation and what might have landed her in this condition. I doubt very much this is Alzheimer's alone.

Mary G.