Just wondered if in your reading (since I just "woke up" to all this) any mention has been made about the progression of AD vs. MCI, etc. And how do they do the differential diagnosis between AD & MCI? To think a year ago I was wondering what the heck was wrong with my husband, to Sunshyne's excellent research telling me exactly what it was.
My understanding is that MCI (or mild cognitive impairment) is a condition that is not dementia. There is memory loss and may be other forms of impairment, but it is not serious enough to be classified as dementia. It may develop into dementia or it may not. So, it may be a very early stage of a form of dementia. My husband has been diagnosed with amnestic MCI, which is the type that is most likely to become Alzheimer's. I think this is explained pretty well on Mayo's site. I don't know about progression of AD compared to other forms of dementia. I'm sure others do, however.
Dont know much about MCI vs AD but my DH has vascular dementia and i think hes' retained his abilities quite a bit longer than most. some days i think hes made a leap 'forward' and shows improvements that shock me,then can slide again later. i think each person slides along a very personal scale thats impacted by other physical health issues that may accompany each dementia type. divvi
With AD the stages are supposed to progress pretty much steadily. It is not as likely as with Vascular Dementia to have someone in multiple stages. They also say the VD progresses stepwise. With sudden declines followed by level periods.
And from what I've read, there really is no specific pattern even between AD patients. With VD patients there is no reason to expect a pattern since the strokes, or other incidents, would have affected different parts of the brain by different amounts with each different patient.