I walked that walk and agree with you. My mom was the smartest person I knew until one day when she wasn't, didn't answer the phone, aunt found her on the floor incoherent, and for the next 6 years we cared for her in our and then her home next door. She never again recognized family.

Music from my mom's youth was the only thing that survived up until language was gone. Old photos maybe were recognizable to her for only a few months out of the six years we had her but she was great at covering up the dementia in retrospect I think she was essentially cold reading the conversation we were having into "recognizing" people in the photos, her immediate family.

There's a link to BBC archives another HNer posted that would have been wonderful to have in a US version. I dislike raining on Alex's product in a thread he should be proud of but from a product standpoint I believe the BBC thingie for US audiences could be more useful to caregivers and those suffering from dementia.