Seeing famous actors e.g. Robin Williams, and Bruce Willis suffering from dementia made me wonder in later stages do the people still aware of death? We all know death because we know the process we learn from or it’s just that we instinctively aware of it?
Yes at a certain point I think that vivid memories are more powerfully connected to our brains than new sensory input is. As my grandfather declined he would look across the room at someone and think they were someone out of his past. And I don’t mean strangers walking past. He once thought his son-in-law, known for 40 years, was an old coworker.