At 57? That's worrisome. Everyday, I do the Cryptoquote, the Jumble and the Scramlets puzzles in the newspaper and for the past 6 weeks my neighbor has been coming over every day to play Scrabble, he's determined to beat me on a regular basis (so far, he wins about one game in three).
At 63, I use this as my gauge of acuity; not much, but it works.
My grandmother was what we called senile in her last 5 years but she suffered two diagnosed strokes in the last two so we may have been confusing symptoms.
She died at 87 at her daughter's house after living with my parents and we two children from before I was born. She gave me my love of reading and the language becuse she was deprived of an education when she was a child and she wanted to see her children and grandchildren be better served.
I voted for Reagan for Governor his first office because he reminded me of my grandmother, strong and determined; I'll miss him, but I'll always respect him.
This matter of how to deal with the Alzheimers victims is strictly one of civilization. They, the mentally ill, the developmentally-challenged, and the people lost to addiction are what we pay taxes to alleviate. Short-changing those goals for pork-barrels helps no one but politicians and their sugar daddies. We have to keep a watch on these matters to insure the lesser-abled are also represented; because they can't and there's no profit in seeing justice done for them.