Dementia involves a group of symptoms that progressively and irreversibly damage a person’s cognitive functions, language, and behavior. The early signs of dementia often develop gradually, so they can go unnoticed for a long time. 

The first symptoms of dementia usually include memory loss, confusion, anxiety, poor judgment, and decision-making abilities, displacing things, language and speech difficulties, being repetitive, depression, aggressive behavior, and personality and behavior changes.

As the person’s health condition declines, he or she needs more support from others for performing activities of daily living. At a moderate stage of the illness, your loved one with dementia may become fully dependent on others to help them with activities of daily living. At this stage it is probably not safe to leave the person unsupervised, so you should arrange that your loved one has around-the-clock supervision or consider relocating the person to an assisted living facility.