My friend's 78 year old brother was just given the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)

[Jarqui]

5. My mother got repeated work ups

They did everything trying to get to the bottom of it.

At the end of their efforts, they were honest: they were not sure if it was vascular dementia or Alzheimer's. She had dropped to a MoCA of 14. Symptoms started 2004. This was about 2008. She lived until 2018.
Mostly, it was a tough, brutal demise for all of us.

But there was this phase she went through over a period of years. She had always been very nervous and too conscious socially. But in this phase, she became child-like and with it carefree for the first time in her life. She was laughing and enjoying life like I had never seen her - no worries or anxiety. I was so glad she finally got to experience that - obviously sorry it couldn't have neem when she was healthier. Later, she thought I was her dear brother who had been dead for 30+ years. We had the most amazing conversations.

It was a horrible ordeal the vast majority of the time. But there were some remarkable, special moments I was grateful for.