Christine,

I like the part about the change of personality. Like you said, the basic person remains there except for the loss of memory. My experience with my father-in-law taught me that his personality will exist as long as he lives. In the last stage when he will lose more abilities, he will be like a shadow. But that would be due to his disease. As far as I see, my FIL is always the way he is just like before. The only difference is the habits or life style due to the sickness. If he could, he would for sure want to go back to his job in research as professor-emeritus. He will never forget that he needs to be with my husband to "work" (his wishful thinking for quite a long time like 25 years or so.) He would still want to jog and get a wife. His original desires are still there and he just cannot carry out anymore.

Regards,

Nina