Families may have difficulty in understanding how a relative who cannot remember his own age or what he had for his last meal, can still recount a story from his childhood in detail. The reason has to do with the nature of memory loss in the disease. Loss of memory for recent events is usually profound, so that individuals may have difficulty remembering the previous sentence in a conversation, of the story line of a television movie. But long-term memory, that is memory of events in the distant past, may remain relatively intact, particularly throughout the early stages of the disease. Exploring the past can serve as a substitute for active experience.
Reminiscence can help to validate the contributions that person has made throughout their life.
From then on Bud was in the service. That was just before D-Day. After Bud left for overseas duty I came home for about two weeks. Both Bud's folks and my folks wanted me to stay with them, but I decided to leave and go to live in Kansas City. So I stayed with my sister in Kansas City, her name was Emily Kracht.