I've read many articles about dementia, but I never find them to be helpful. They never give examples of anything and every case is different. Can someone explain how it's diagnosed, particularly in the early stages? I mean, everyone forgets things no matter how old they are. Some people are very forgetful and remember events incorrectly, but they don't have dementia or any other disorder that would cause forgetfulness. Going by these articles, I would say everyone has dementia. I have seen people younger than 30 who have the symptoms mentioned in the dementia articles. In the case of my grandmother, she's been saying questionable things going back at least 15 years. I never knew whether she was confabulating, lying, just trying to make conversation, or simply confused. She is someone whose nature is to kind of play dumb (say she didn't know when she very well did know). She's always been lazy and never wanted to be bothered. The only things she enjoyed were driving and socializing. When she couldn't do either of those due to mobility issues after cancer treatment, that's when I really noticed changes in her. I remember about six years ago she was so "off" that I thought by December 2016 she would have full blown dementia, but she didn't. With her, I can't tell if she has dementia or if what I'm seeing is her laziness and not wanting to be bothered to think mentally. I do think that maybe she has mild dementia, but where do you draw the line between dementia and normal forgetfulness (keeping in mind that some people are naturally super forgetful)?
It is not so much just the frequency of forgetting as the nature of what is forgotten and their reaction to it.
Dementia has other components in addition to memory loss. (Different kinds of dementia have different characteristics.) These may include hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, problems with depth perception, sleep disturbances, difficulty in coming up with even obvious solutions, anxiety over decision making, loss of sense of smell, and many more.
If grandmother develops additional symptoms that could be dementia, it may be time to get her evaluated.
For now, you know what grandmother's behavior is like. Whether you have a label for it or not, it is what it is and it is what you have to deal with. There are no cures for dementia and very little in the way of treatment plans.
In what way do you think having a diagnosis would change things for you?