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In my experience personally, the things I see in the Alzheimer’s group, and noting how the other people who are in the same boat I am are coping, there is no hard and fast common route for all people with Alzheimer’s. It seems to impact people in different ways, e.g. speech, anger management, frustration, withdrawal, etc. In time, more and more aspects seem to attach themselves to the person with Alzheimer’s – but looking at the progression of my mother compared to me, the decline is much slower for me. My mother manifested symptoms in the 70′s and there were precious little avenues of treatment.  My father retired early, and devoted himself to caring for her. Basically, he had the double whammy of dealing with her being engulfed by the alzheimer’s cloud, and having no definitive help in the form of medications (I have Razadyne and Namenda with more coming in the pipeline). Not only this, but there was no help from groups managed by specialists in the disease and let me tell you, the Rush Group is a HUGE blessing for me and is a real help to keep me focused, and hopeful for the future. For my mother,  my father’s total devotion to her counted a lot to make her feel safe – but it placed a burden on him. Again, Rush recognized this early, and my wife has a separate group that meets concurrently with mine in a different room(composed of those with Alzheimer’s) to discuss how the caregivers can cope and deal with the impact of this disease.

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