It’s almost never loud when it starts. No flashing lights. No announcements. Just... strangeness. You spot it in the oddest places: car keys in the sugar jar, a stubborn stain of confusion during familiar conversations, or a loved one—once a problem-fixing wizard—staring at the microwave like it’s a cosmic riddle.

Dementia doesn’t barge in. It leaks. Leaks into everything. And by the time you notice the water pooling, it’s already soaked through the walls.

Let’s name the towers—the places in the body, the mind, and the life-structure where dementia sends up flares. You won’t always know what to do with them. But you’ll see them. If you’re looking.

Tower 1: When Labels Get Tricky

This question sticks to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter. And for good reason—dementia acts like a mental illness. The mood swings. The confusion. The paranoia. The sadness. But here’s the inconvenient truth: technically, it isn’t one. Dementia is classified as a neurocognitive disorder. It’s not birthed from emotional trauma or chemical imbalances the way depression or bipolar disorder is. It’s structural—about dying neurons and shrinking brain tissue.

Still, the symptoms bleed into psychiatry’s territory. And people often get misdiagnosed with depression, or anxiety, or worse, before someone realizes the brain is crumbling physically—not just emotionally. In the end, labels are squishy. What matters is care. And that it starts early.

Tower 2: The Muscle Fade

If you think dementia lives only in the brain, think again. Look at the legs. Watch the hands. Is grip strength declining? Is walking slower? Are they shuffling like the floor might betray them?

Muscle loss is sneaky, but it’s tied up in this mess. Research shows that people with dementia often start losing muscle before anyone even mentions memory. It’s not just about age-related weakness—it’s a neurological short-circuit. When brain signals to the muscles slow down, the body responds with atrophy. Add in malnutrition, decreased movement, and boom—sarcopenia.

Aunt Dolores fell twice before we caught on. She thought she was just tired. But her legs were giving out, subtly saying: hey, something’s wrong upstairs.

Tower 3: Trust Becomes a Stranger

Is paranoia a sign of dementia? It is. And it’s gutting. It starts with suspicious glances. Then the whispers. Then accusations. “You took my wallet.” “He’s trying to poison me.” “You’re not my daughter—you’re a spy.”

This is not a joke. Not delusion in the romantic sense. This is paranoia sewn by dying neurons, mostly in the frontal lobes. It’s often worse in Lewy body dementia, but can show up in Alzheimer’s too. Sometimes people develop Capgras syndrome, believing a loved one has been replaced by an identical impostor. It sounds sci-fi until it’s your dad swearing you’re a fake.

It’s heartbreaking. And infuriating. And it changes the way you love someone.

Tower 4: The Map Gets Torn

Driving is a skill of a thousand small decisions. Mirror. Merge. Brake. Blink. When dementia creeps in, those decisions fall like dominos. Suddenly, a left turn becomes a maze. The dashboard blurs. The route to the pharmacy—once muscle memory—requires GPS. Then even the GPS makes no sense.

Common signs of dementia while driving? Missing stop signs. Hitting the gas instead of the brake. Forgetting the way home. Panic in traffic. Driving too slow, then way too fast.

Some people, oddly, drive better when they’ve memorized routes. But the second something new enters the picture—a detour, a bad weather turn—the mask slips.

And taking away the keys? It’s not just a safety thing. It’s an identity fracture. A freedom funeral.

Tower 5: Words Become Strangers

It’s like watching someone search for a word underwater. They open their mouth and bubbles come out. Instead of “remote,” they say “the... that clicky thing.” Instead of “pantry,” it’s “the food closet, you know, with the thing.”

This isn’t forgetfulness. It’s anomia—a common early dementia sign where the connection between concept and language weakens. In some types, like Primary Progressive Aphasia, language decline is the first and most brutal domino. Grammar erodes. Vocabulary crumbles. Conversations turn into scavenger hunts.

It’s painful to watch someone who once told stories now struggle to form a sentence. Like trying to sculpt from fog.

Tower 6: Time Gets Weird

Tuesday feels like Friday. Breakfast? Just had it. Or... did I? They think the wedding was last month—it was ten years ago.

This is a subtle tower, but it holds massive weight. The brain’s hippocampus, responsible for memory and orientation, begins to falter. People with dementia lose their internal clock. Days blend. Seasons shift out of order. Time fractures.

This leads to dangerous consequences: missed medications, wandering outside at night, eating four dinners because each one feels like the first.

And when they argue with you about what year it is, they’re not being difficult. Their brain truly doesn’t know anymore.

Tower 7: Judgment Breaks Like Glass

Once careful and wise, they start giving money to scammers. Fall for too-good-to-be-true offers. Leave the oven on. Let strangers into the house.

This isn’t stubbornness—it’s executive dysfunction. The frontal lobe—our logic center, the brain’s CEO—is losing its grip. And when the CEO’s out, the interns run wild. Things that once sparked caution—“That sounds like a scam,” “Don’t click that link”—now get greenlit without a second thought.

Judgment, impulse control, risk assessment: these things evaporate. Sometimes they get aggressive. Sometimes overly trusting. One man bought ten vacuum cleaners from a door-to-door salesman and never opened a single box. A woman gave her Social Security number to a teenager on the bus. Either way, the compass is spinning, and the consequences are often irreversible.

And here’s where it gets ugly—financial abuse. It's one of dementia's dirtiest shadows. Caregivers. Neighbors. Even family members. They take. They manipulate. They groom them into dependency, then empty the savings account. And the person with dementia? Often they don’t even realize they’ve been robbed. Or worse—they remember just enough to be ashamed.

This tower collapses fast. You’ll see a once-independent soul become vulnerable, erratic, impulsive. And the worst part? They might fight you when you try to help. It’s not just that they don’t see the danger—it’s that they no longer understand what danger is.

Tower 8: Mood and Masks

Here’s the real trip: the person you love might disappear emotionally before they disappear physically. Your silly mom becomes cold. Your gentle dad now lashes out. Some laugh at funerals. Others cry over toast. It’s disorienting. Intimate. Like watching someone put on a mask made of someone else’s skin.

This is not just “having a bad day.” It’s neurological. The amygdala, the emotional alarm bell of the brain, is thrown out of tune. The limbic system, which once filtered anger, joy, sadness—now lets it all pour out raw and strange. In frontotemporal dementia, personality is often the first casualty. The "you" in them steps aside and something else moves in.

You might see disinhibition—loud, rude jokes at dinner. Or apathy—sitting motionless for hours, not sad, not happy, just... blank. They might stop caring how they look. Stop reacting when someone cries.

And then there’s sundowning—a nasty phenomenon where confusion and agitation spike during late afternoon or evening. It’s like a fever that sets in with the sunset. Shadows grow teeth. Familiar rooms feel hostile. They pace. They shout. They accuse. Then fall silent, empty, as if the moment never happened. It’s exhausting, for everyone.

Love them anyway. Even when they no longer resemble the person they were. Even when it hurts. Especially then.

Tower 9: Sensory Flickers

What do you do when the world smells wrong? When bacon smells like rubber and voices turn into mush?

People with dementia often experience phantom smells, taste changes, and even distorted hearing—not because their nose or ears are broken, but because the brain’s interpretation systems are deteriorating.

They might crave only sweet food. They might lose the ability to follow conversations in noisy places. Music that once moved them now irritates them.

These aren’t quirks. They’re neurological breakdowns disguised as preferences.

Tower 10: The Unfolding Cliff

So—how many stages of dementia are there? Most clinicians use the Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), which outlines seven stages. Let’s walk the cliffside together:

1. No visible symptoms. Brain quietly declining.

2. Very mild memory lapses—lost keys, forgotten names.

3. Mild cognitive impairment: repetitive questions, work issues.

4. Early dementia: mismanaged bills, denial, anxiety.

5. Moderate: help required for clothing, hygiene, meals.

6. Severe: confusion, paranoia, hallucinations, loss of recognition.

7. Final stage: inability to speak, move, eat, or interact.

But stages aren’t clean lines. They blur, loop, and backtrack. One moment they’re laughing, and the next, they don’t know your name. That’s the cruelty of it.

You Know Before You Know

There’s this moment—before any doctor says the word “dementia”—when you already know. A moment when you feel something wrong in the bones of a conversation, or when silence stretches a little too long.

It starts with flickers. With oddities. And before long, it’s everywhere. In the mirror. In the way they hug you. In how they chew their food. It is a soft collapse—so quiet, it feels like grief’s little cousin, creeping through the floorboards.

But recognizing the towers? That’s how you prepare. That’s how you love better, earlier. Not by fixing the unfixable—but by seeing what’s coming, and holding their hand a little tighter when it does.