Thatcher's Mental Skills

In her prime, she was unbelievably well-informed, quick, with a prodigious memory. But her daughter is now confirming that since 2000, her mother declined:

In an extract serialised in a Sunday newspaper, she describes having to break the news of Denis Thatcher's death to her mother more than once. He died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer. "Dementia meant she kept forgetting he was dead. I had to keep giving her the sad news over and over again. Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her husband of more than 50 years, she'd look at me sadly and say, 'Oh', as I struggled to compose myself. 'Were we all there?' she'd ask softly."

This brilliant woman started to lose acuity and suffered a series of small strokes at the age of 75.