Nah, it was much worse than that. It came on after a traffic accident in which her head hit against the driver's window of the car, then she started having personality changes. We wondered if it might be slight brain damage or a series of strokes, but she was tested and they said none of that was visible. She became extremely combative at one point, and began cursing regularly, which was a sure sign something was wrong as this woman never cursed, nor was she ever a difficult person with whom to deal. She would not live with any of her eight children, so we were blessed to find a woman who could live with her, in her house, during the week, then one of us would come down and stay with her for the weekend. She was able to stay there for three years at which point she began having some physical problems that the live in caregiver could not handle.
By then, she just kept saying she wanted to go home, but had no idea where home was, so we were able to find a nursing home that cared for Alzheimers patients. The aides there were always very nice to her. She died after being there two years, and frankly, though we grieved for Mama, she hadn't really been there for several years, so we mainly just all breathed a sign of relief, and had some good laughs of the times we'd been with her when she was all there. It was a good thing there were no other grieving families in the funeral home that night of her wake. They might have been scandalized because we got really raucous with laughing and visiting with old friends of the family.
Exact same thing with my Mom.
Not that unusual. The funeral events of my father, who had the Big A, and my father-in-law, who did not, were like that. Father in law had a series of mini-strokes, which produce some, but not all, of the same symptoms. My father in law never had the personalities changes that are so typical with Alzheimer's. He slept a lot, but chuckled in his sleep, and chuckled when awake, both when he was lucid, and when he wasn't. But he'd always chuckled a lot.
My FiL's funeral was in February. The other funeral I went to this past year was not like that at all. My sister in law, 46, with two kids still in high school, died in November of a very aggressive renal cancer. About two months from first symptoms til she died, and not a pleasant two months either, especialy the second month.