Dad feels he is just as normal as he has always been... I see daily the decline and try to convey that to my siblings. He is 83 today and has lived w/me for 10 years. When he first came to my home, he was still active and did a lot of projects, but due to a lobectomy can no longer keep busy. I witness his changes and know he is not 'his normal' with memory, with daily functions, his constant contradictions... you know the list. He has always been cantankerous, so that has just gotten worse. Sometimes he tells me that he appreciates me. I work full time and spend a lot of time with him, I know he is lonely all day and just wants the company, so we sit on the deck and chat for a couple hours daily. I absolutely refuse to have any regrets when he dies and will do what I can for him now, knowing full well that he will need to go to AL eventually, as I cannot give up working. (then neither one of us would have a home) I do have outside friends that understand and stay in touch weekly (which he's resentful of my being on the phone so long, but I will not isolate them, they are my life line) so I'm not a hermit. I believe he has some form of dementia and my nephew (the only 'once a week' visitor) also sees a change.
Unless his medications are causing his behavior, then it's just the ticking clock of old age, in my opinion. I've checked out all of mom's meds and taken her off those that aren't life-sustaining. (She has congestive heart failure.) What more can we do? There are no magic potions to roll back the clock.
Identify a problem and solve it. Identify a problem and solve it. That's what's worked for me in the year mom's been with me as she's declined slowly into dementia.
It sounds to me like you're doing a great job of balancing your life and your needs against those of your dad. I don't know what more a loving daughter could be expected to do. Watching a loved one decline in old age is painful. We always think there's something more WE should be doing.
That's often not the case at all.
Would your dad be able to answer questions about what season it is? Where he grew up? What building he is in or how he got there? Can he correctly report his medical history? These are the kinds of things the doctor asked my LO. She also asked her to draw some things on paper.