Dementia is a brutal disease. My grandmother passed away two years ago from vascular dementia, took around 10 years from first symptoms to she passed. The worst part, IMO, is that the disease robs the person of their personality. My grandparents were...passionate but volatile people. They'd have intense discussions, which would evolve into shouting matches, and then 5 minutes later back to normal, as if it never happened. They were both very social.

Around midway into the disease, she just became very quiet. Apathic. Didn't want to hold a conversation - couldn't hold a conversation. At the this time my grandpa had a nasty fall accident, which resulted in a brain hemorrhage - the long term effect was that he lost his short term memory, and basically had dementia symptoms. I guess that was a blessing, because especially he was feeling the effects of living with a dementia patient. At least now they were somewhat blissfully unaware of their problems (after the accident he started rationalizing my grandmothers dementia with her simply "losing her hearing")

In any case, the loss of personality sucks big time. Three years before her death, things ramped up. Misplaced items everywhere, cleaning up after their accidents, basically "dementia-proofing" every single thing in the house. Tracking down hearing aids which they had a habit of just hiding. By aunt basically worked full time as a caretaker, for a whole year straight. She had to go into early retirement by two years, just to be able to do that. And that was with healthcare professionals checking by 3-4 times a day.

The relief was immense when they finally got placed into a memory care facility, but sadly that's also when things started to speed up.

My grandparents were basically my extra parents growing up, and meant the world to me. When I was a bit younger they both experienced serious health problems, and my anxiety shot through the roof - sure, they were in their 70s, but losing them was unthinkable to me.

So when they finally passed, one year from each others, I was surprised to not feel that much sadness anymore. More relived that they didn't have to suffer anymore. In a way, they were already "gone" years prior to their bodies passing away.