Early possible dementia

Hello,

I’m trying to figure out if my mom has early signs of dementia or simply age related issues. She is 79, seems to be very sharp for her age, still works two days a week part time, but while she was driving home, she texted me.

I was on the phone at the time, but once I called her, I saw she texted she was on the way home and immediately after she said “I may be driving into it”

When i called her, she asked if it was storming out and I said no. She said that I had texted her and told her it was storming. I checked my phone, I checked her phone when she got home and there was no such text. I asked her about it and she shrugged it off. Bothering me still, I asked her about it, she didn’t want to talk about it and said “it’s a mystery”.

A few years ago I was worried about her memory, her not remembering movies we watched. I chalked it up to old age. Recently, we were going to sell our house we own together and downsize, but she became frustrated with understanding numbers. She also told me about some mailings we had in the mail for life insurance she wanted to look into. It was junk mail and she was sure it wasn’t. She has also hidden some financial decisions from me (we co-own together) and is also very paranoid about our neighbors, who she has called the HOA on and has had me put security cameras up on to our house.

This all sounds like a lot, but she still works and acts normal, has normal conversations, and my brothers don’t see anything wrong.

She eats dinner two hours earlier and goes to sleep earlier. She gets upset easily if it isn’t something she likes to hear and puts her hands over her ears.

Again, she acts normal otherwise. I take care of her and no one else sees this.

Should I be concerned of early dementia or simply age related issues?

Thank you!