Hi Alfredo,

Carol said it well. I would like to add that for families like us (my father-in-law has late stage of AD,) we need to know in advance about the staging progress and plan accordingly. In the beginning, you may have to respect the patient's need as being indepedent by the person's wish, but gradually the patient can no longer be trusted and will be incompetent invisibly and suddenly you will see something terribly wrong with the memory and the things they are doing and worse yet, the patient can get lost before you know it!

I think the first thing the need is caregiving - someone has to be watching this person! The question is how long per day. It gets into more hours as the disease progresses. At the same time, the power of attorney or health directive documents are needed from the person with early stage of AD so he/she can tell you what the decisions will be later on when they cannot decide anymore.

When it comes to caregiving, we need to understand that fighting or arguing cannot help because the person does not understand in moderate stage. In early stage, you may still debate with him like normal people.

Also, the person depends on someone close to him for guidance. e.g., my FIL depends on my husband for his judgment, not caregiving everyday, but my husband calls him everyday and he is the POA for his Dad. You need to select someone to be the close "mentor" and it is going to be a long way to go. Find some support so you are not under too much pressure.

Certainly a good healh plan or medical insurance is important and you need to find a good family doctor who can understand dementia or AD. A specialist may help a lot - a neurologist or psychiatrist can prescribe drugs for dementia or diagnose the staging. Also a nurse/health manager who understands the elder's need if you hire home care company to help out. In the end, you may also enlist a nursing home when the patient gets very sick at late stage.

Sorry it is a long list and the details are more than these... But we learn as we go on the path and there are many surprises because everyone is different.

Good luck and take care,

Nina