Are Alzeihmer patients aware they have dementia?

[MrsPS3]

A family member has been diagnosed with Alzeihmers, she doesn't know yet but the family are planning to talk to her before the consultant. This is understandably a very difficult conversation and some family members think this is going to be bad for her as it will cause her a lot of suffering and she seems pretty happy right now.

What I think is that it will definitely cause her suffering when she receives the news but that maybe she will forget later that day or the day after, but how likely is this to happen? She has moderate dementia, she forgets things, sometimes has forgotten important things but definitely not forgetting everything all the time.

Can anyone share experiences on how this was for their family members?

My mum was diagnosed 2021 and the way things were going was obvious to family a couple of years before that. She quickly had no memory of seeing the doctors, the brain scan or the diagnosis and thinks she is just a little forgetful.
Since dad died she gets lonely and wants to move to an assisted living complex where she has a friend but they don't take people who already have a diagnosis of dementia. That's a difficult conversation I have to have regularly. I just tell her there's a very long waiting list but then I get interrogated about how long she will need to wait.

It can vary enormously. My mother had Alzh. for around 15 years altogether, in a care home for the last 8, and it was probably at around the 10 year mark that she (quite suddenly) failed to recognise me or my siblings.
But she was certainly unusual.

By contrast the neighbour of a friend had a ‘galloping’ variety. It was only a few months before she tried to kick her husband of over 30 years out of the house - thought he was an unwelcome and very likely dangerous stranger.
She was dead within about 3 years of the onset - it started in her very early 70s.

TBH if you’re going to get it, I for one would choose the galloping variety any day, rather than having it dragging on and only getting worse, for years

My aunt knew her memory was getting bad, but then she fell a few times and that was it. Dementia diagnosis and wouldn’t believe anybody, G.P, Psychiatrist and so on. She thought the nursing home was a hospital, she was very happy, loved her food and passed away after six months from pneumonia, very peacefully age 85.

My uncle attends memory clinic, he’s aware he’s in the very early stages. He’s 87. He’s still allowed to drive, which we aren’t too sure about. At the moment he has the odd issue, flushing his dentures, losing his keys. He attends memory clinic.

thanks