Beginning

We were told that the mean average for Early Onset cases is 8 years from diagnosis (which usually occurs a year or two into the disease) to death. Our doctors said that otherwise AD patients average about 10-15 years although some patients can live 20 years (they told us that it isn't usually AD that is terminal in elderly patients, for obvious reasons). They were very reluctant to give us a prognosis since it varies so widely from patient to patient, but I pushed for answers. We desperately rely on the doctors to give us answers. Anyway, DH has been tracking the prognosis that we got at the beginning of his diagnosis pretty closely so far. Rosariared's info above is really good, and it looks like the info I got from our doctors fits right into that spreadsheet.

A woman I work with lost her Mother with AD after 7-years to pneumonia. She was told that penumonia is often a cause of death for AD patients since in later stages of AD the patients can have more trouble with coughing, etc. even if they're otherwise in good health.

Columbia's nursing home calculator is a pretty good tool (do an internet search for "predicting time to nursing home admission"). It also has a death calculator and the results were consistent with the information that I got from our doctors.

I always feel very cold-hearted when talking about a death from AD. We have so many years to think about it, and ultimately it seems to be such a release. And planning is such a struggle...