Mom is losing her vocabulary, her speech is full of pronouns. She blames it on aging.
We noticed sometimes when people ask her a simple question, she replies with completely irrelevant answers. For example, she’s at a party, some one asks her “where do you live?” She would come up with replies having nothing to do with such a simple question.
She has been to an audiologist to have hearing checked and it is within normal range.
I wonder what kind of impairment this is?
We have been asking her to see a doctor but she has refused and insisted that she’s just getting old and it is normal.
*Some* decline is normal, she's right; so reassure her that you would like the neurologist to confirm that this is the case and rule out potentially avoidable and/or treatable causes of anything more sinister. Why put up with a nuisance if you can do something about it AND possibly stop it getting worse?
https://www.asha.org/PRPSpecificTopic.aspx?folderid=8589934663§ion=Causes
(from the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
Do not make mention of Alzheimer’s to her. No one ever said, “Oh boy! I’ll bet I have dementia!” But everyone in your family needs to know what the future holds.
I wouldn't ask her to got for this specific issue; I'd ask her to go for a regular checkup, get her flu shot, make sure that shes gotten any other vaccines/tests that her doctor might think necessary.
In advance of her appointment, send the doctor a brief, bullet-pointed note about what you are noticing.
when someone asks her, where is your new place? Instead of answering “it’s just a mile west of the airport”, she gestures wildly with both hands trying to draw an imaginary map in the air, but of course nobody understands what she’s trying to do.