Hi I am back again.....so mom with Alzheimer's was declining I would say in a typical fashion - but this last month - wow!! She forgets the sequence of steps when going to the bathroom, taking pills, her walking looks labored, she is very hard to understand when she speaks. We just did a full gamut of tests. Everything is normal - no infections, no stroke. Is this the beginning of the end?
She's been slipping, but the last couple of months, it has sped up a lot. No rhyme or reason for it..nothing has changed--she's LOVING the pandemic b/c it keeps people away from her, so it's not that at all.
DH's concern is that this year he is going to have to exert his POA and have her moved to a full time NH. She is wearing her daughter to a nub, as she will only allow her to 'help her' and she's too weak to pick up a 1 lb sack of potatoes. DH is simply waiting for the 'fall' that is almost inevitable that will take her down even more.
I think that decline is as personal as any other thing our LO's go through. there's no set timelime or way to judge. Last year I would have thought MIL would live to 100. Now I'll be surprised if she makes it to summer. But, of course, we don't know.
In my family, once diagnosed their ALZ journey was 10 yrs or more. The decline was slow. Like your Mom, there were signs before the actual diagnosis. To answer your question though, yes decline can come on faster. It has to do with the part of the brain now effected. There is a part that controls speech and I think motor skills too. Not saying this is the end. My Nurses used to call it an episode. I would talk to her neurologist and see if therapy would help.