Is it still possible for one in the later stages of ALZ (5 or 6 maybe) to form new memories?

My mother-in-law is in a memory care unit, and can no longer carry on a conversation or answer basic questions with any meaning. She can still form grammatically correct sentences but wrong word choices: names of people, places, and things are mixed up. She has no idea what or if she's eaten.
However, she can remember the way people make her feel. She correctly recognizes some of the friendlier staff as such, saying things like, "She's very nice," and "Here he is! He is the really good, good, good, uh uh... captain" Conversely, she can point out the couple residents who are notoriously obnoxious, "There she is. She never has anything nice to say." And the odd ones, "That one is always dancing," (who is, when she likes the music).
These are people she sees daily but has only been around under 10 months!

Absolutely! we all make sense one way or another, I feel we all have a connection with each other because we understand what everybody is going through. My mom also confuses her condiments for side dishes N sometimes even paper towels, oh!! N her dentures, she wanted to eat them, yes,! I know it sounds gross but its true. She cant really hear that good, so that makes our talking difficult, I will say something like, "you wanna go outside," she'll answer, "no I'm not hungry," so now I just say 👌, I no longer try to correct her or repeat myself, because it becomes frustrating. My brother was here yesterday visiting and I overheard him say, "ok Ma whatever" he started repeating his question to her N finally caught on LOL

Science does not have all the answers.

Just go with it no matter. What her reality is makes her happy. Disagreeing will frustrate her and she will become more closed up inside her mind.

At those stages the patient is totally sedated, however, remember they can still hear, so be tender and kind with touch and massage and do not cry in front and please no last rites in her presence and no tube, love to you.

Such an interesting subject! Memory-wise, my husband of nearly 34 years is all over the map. He will come up with things from his childhood, the street he lived on, his siblings and stories from that time. Yet when his children visit he does not remember that they were here that evening. And of course he asks the same questions over and over again all day. We are getting ready to move into an apartment in a couple of weeks and though I will take him over before the actual move and show him the grounds and the room where he will sleep, I will have someone keep him occupied on moving day. I have tried to avoid talking much about it because though I tried hard to find a place similar to our home, it just was not possible. But I plane to decorate with the same things and do what I can. There will be no yard, just a small patio but I will place some plants there for him to care for. He loves to feed birds, but the complex does not allow bird feeders at all due to them drawing rats, which has been a real concern in our home too. This will be a challenge in many ways. I know I have gotten "off the subject". Sorry!

I think yes, to some degree depending on association of emotions attached to the memory. My mom seems to “remember” odd tidbits of new information but often connects the new memory to something else and creates either a happy association or sad one to it. It becomes the memory of the day or week or even month. As others mentioned, their loved ones randomly remember things. I know there are people at the memory care facility that “ remember” me. Some think I’m their old neighbor or daughter or whoever. They seem to associate old memories with bits and pieces of new experiences. All I can say is a smile seems to go a long way even when interacting or being around people who seem to be completely incoherent. I don’t think you can teach a lot of new information to a memory impaired person but I do think if you can combine as many of their senses as possible (especially anything that has motor skills or touch involved) into any new learning, some part of it sticks in their brain that isn’t yet diseased.

Could be she has Lewy body and not Alzheimer.
Many people are misdiagnosed.
Perhaps you should read about LB and see if it may be the case for your
Mom.

to the best of my knowledge, my mother can not hold onto any new memories. nada nothing zero.

she started with some memory problems in about 2010. she is now almost 89, and somewhere at moderate+. still dresses and feeds herself. showers herself, but stopped washing her hair. memory about a minute, sometimes seconds. she knows family, she knows where her AL room is. dining room etc.

Ok. Thank you!! Yes, we are working on that. I already have an eye mask for my Mom and her roommate's family is going to get her a set of ear buds. Thankfully the roommate had been very understanding so far and quickly turns the TV off. But she has dementia too. Really hoping it works out. She can't have a private room with the state paying the bill and we are in no position to pay for a private room. I haven't seen her this happy in a long while.

If by forming new memories, you mean can people with moderately advanced dementia learn new things, then yes, I’d say. My mother learned to look at the memory box next to her door in the memory care, which has pictures of her gardening and her first name in large green letters, to know which is her room. I bought her a cheerful plush chicken wearing a pink hat and began putting it on her bed by her pillows, so that when she’d come into her room, she’d see it and recognize the place, her bed, or at least feel more comfortable, because Chickie seems familiar. It took a couple of months, but it works quite often now. (She doesn’t know she lives there.)

There is a fascinating book by Cameron J. Camp called Hiding the Stranger in the Mirror: a Detective’s Manual for Solving Problems Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders. That is, what we refer to as “behaviors.” The chapter titled “New Learning” describes a variety of ways in which people with dementia learn and can be taught (in order to solve behavior issues), including classical conditioning, operant conditioning (from behavioral therapy), and “spaced retrieval.” It sounds very complicated, but the book is really down to earth and easy to read, with lots of stories and lessons from real life. I have the ebook.

People with dementia can and do learn to associate bad (and presumably good) feelings with particular people and places, though they don’t do it consciously. I’ve worked very hard to have my mother associate good feelings with the place where she lives, mostly by taking her outdoors. She has always loved the outdoors and likes to explore nature. Many, many happy years of camping ... though she doesn’t consciously remember the camping. And she enjoys gardening, though she doesn’t remember doing it.

I find that our ALZ family member's brain seems to work like a lamp on the fritz. She's there, she's gone, she's there for a while, she's gone. She remembers something that happened this morning, then she forgets that butter is a condiment, not a side dish.

I am not finding that it is progressing evenly. I only have this one experience with Alzheimer's, though.

I recently had to stop going to visit her in the care home due to an extreme illness. I couldn't visit for about 2 months, although I called her several times a week. I have friends who did visit her in the meantime. Not people that she's known for a long time. And they didn't visit more than once a week. When I was finally able to go, my friend drove me there. She remembered my friend, but not me. She was very confused, she knew that she should know me, even commented on the weight that I lost while sick. But couldn't remember me at all. Since then she has never had that issue again, she always recognizes me.

I just thought it's interesting that she knew my friend, who was virtually a stranger to her, but not me. And now she remembers me again. I'm thinking it was just a moment of confusion.

Also, because I hadn't been there for so long, she was convinced that I had moved away and left her there to die. No matter how many times I reassured her. Now that I'm visiting regularly again, she doesn't say that any more.

Alzheimers/Dementia is a horrible disease! She often doesn't remember that we (my out of town sister & myself) call or visit her, so she thinks that we never do. The anniversary of my father's death is coming up, thankfully she doesn't remember. But she still misses him terribly. She often feels abandoned, but I've noticed that it's worse when I can't visit. Like on some level she remembers that I either have or haven't been there. She just seems more secure when I'm able to go regularly. Hope this makes sense.

They can learn and make connections - usually about things you would rather have them forget lol.
I was just reading an article about a couple who had fallen in love in the nursing home and spent the majority of their time huddled together. They couldn't remember each others names or that they were already married to someone else but they were distressed when they had to be apart - very bittersweet.