My mother, 91, has early stage dementia. She is mean and nasty some of the time and seems frustrated. I have read that with dementia, the short-memory is affected first. So I tried talking to my mother about her past life. On that conversation that lasted 24 minutes on the phone, her recall was amazing. She remembered events in chronological order, remembered how old she was at the time, remembered all the aunts and uncles names, etc. It was one of the best conversations we have had in a long time. I will initiate more of the early in life conversations with her.

