Is there a big change at age 70?

[Itsgotmethinking]

Mum almost 71, have noticed a change in her quite recently. She’s always been quite dizzy, she’s happy to admit this, but recently I’m noticing different things and feel a bit worried. She just doesn’t seem as with it at all, we were talking today for quite a while about seeing the sunset, it got quite confusing and then it turned out she meant the moon and had kept saying sunset not moon. She was also saying how it was one hour before to be at the airport, when she’s known for years it’s two hours. My sister mentioned it to me too.
My mum still gets some menopause symptoms but doesn’t take full hrt due to having had breast cancer, she said she often gets a foggy head, could it be just this? She seems aware of it, but I don’t want to highlight it and worry/embarrass her.
My dad is 75 and not like this at all, should I be worried 😔

It just sounds like normal ageing, I've been like this since my 40s. I don't have any post menopause symptoms but my short term memory and being able to remember words is getting gradually worse.

My MIL is completely normal and as she's always been, and she's mid seventies now.
My mum was the same until she died aged 77 (but of cancer, nothing brain related).
Everyone is different of course.

@CadyEastman "Lots of my family have lived far beyond 70,"

Glad to hear it!🤔

It really isn’t. I know many people in the 70s, 80s and even 90s. It is not a common feature to be confused. Forgetting the odd word is normal but confusion isn’t. The OP says her mother is getting confused and doesn’t seem with it.

Why is the doctor still prescribing HRT for her at that age and why is she then taking it intermittently?

Does she realise when she's said the wrong word?

Well, what does your Dad think?
He lives with her, so has he noticed changes too?

If you're being sharky you'll have to explain yourself more fully. I'm on the pathway for assessment for ASD and that one's gone right over my head

Why is the doctor still prescribing HRT for her at that age and why is she then taking it intermittently?

Current thinking is that you can carry on taking it indefininately, I believe. It's dangerous if you don't and then start more than ten years after menopause though, due to arterial stiffening which occurs in the interim without oestrogen.

That doesn’t sound entirely normal to me - she’s 71 not 85.

I would get her checked out by the GP, it’s important to do that because if she does have dementia, there are treatments that can slow it down

The PP just means that most people’s family members live well beyond 70 (average life expectancy is 79 for a bloke and 82 for a woman)

She was being funny not mean

I think this is signs of menopause at that age but im not entirely sure.