[zdragnar]

Dementia is a terrible way to go, both for the people who get it and for their loved ones who are with them.

One day, my grandmother forgot English when my uncle was visiting and kept speaking in her native tongue and got so mad because nobody understood her.

That was one of the few amusing anecdotes from get decline. The rest are just depressing.

Watching your father cry because he went to the hardware store and couldn't remember how to get home and had to ask an employee to call his family for him, for example, was particularly tough.

[wjxgxey]

You know why that happens? Because the health care system slows natural decay rate of some subsystems (via pills/surgeries etc) while having nothing to offer for other subsystems. So rather than all subsystems decaying together we produce this mismatched state.

[zdc1]

You can't really blame the healthcare system for this. Alzheimer's and Dementia existed before modern medicine. The reality is that many fit, active, and otherwise healthy people will hit their 60s and 70s and will experience cognitive decline and Alzheimer's.

[wjxgxey]

They hit their 60s and 70s because the health care system is good at fixing certain physical issues not bugs accumulating in the brain. The brain just like your OS cant just keep getting patched forever. So currently people just keep patching older wearing out hardware without any software upgrades available.

[temp_praneshp]

That's the response you have to the parent's anecdotes?

I hope that one day you are not sad and angry anymore.

[AdamN]

That would happen even if there was no medicine at all. It's not like in the natural world disease and dying is smooth. Individual systems fall apart and then the rest of the organism dies slowly or quickly.