Comment by saltcured
4 hours ago
If you have cared for someone with dementia, this isn't so surprising.
It isn't a monotonic decline with memories disappearing forever. It is like wave upon wave of changing capacity at different time scales. The general trend is deterioration, but there are frequent periods that can almost seem like remission.
There is a well known daily cycle referred to as "sundowning", where the sufferer tends to come unraveled later in the day. The next morning, they'll be more functional.
Later in the progression, you can see much higher frequency variations. Like periods of disorientation and confusion interspersed with periods of lucidity all within a single sitting or conversation.
In those periods of greater lucidity, recall of the past can be more accurate. General listening comprehension, speaking, and logical thought also seem more normal.
Edit to add: I sometimes wonder if the belief in terminal lucidity is one of those logical fallacies which support lots of superstitions. Are we just fixating on the final wave in this chaotic wave train, and forgetting all the other waves that happened before it? Or is it that more caretakers are engaged and observing these waves towards the end, e.g. because the patient is known to be in the terminal phase..?
> It isn't a monotonic decline with memories disappearing forever.
Last time I visited my grandpa he was really far gone. The day we arrived and subsequent two days he didn't even recognize his daughter, my mom, or even recall he had one. He'd sit in the bedroom and watch the garden, and ask "who's that guy" every 15 minutes or so, as he'd forget about me in the livingroom.
The last day we visited before flying home. I entered first, and this time he sat in the living room, and as he saw me enter the hallway he exclaimed my name. We reminisced for hours in fluent English, his third language and my second language, as I wasn't so good in his and my moms native language. He recalled lots of details, some even I had forgotten but I confirmed later.
He passed away a couple of weeks later.
Raised with my grandmother with Alzheimer for all of my childhood she called me by her long dead brother's name.
Walked out the door one day said "See you later grandma" and she said "Have fun ______" and called me by my real name, called my older siblings and said go spend time, she died two days later.
Very common.