Wow, sorry to hear about your Dad, Chris! Those broken hips are really awful; just really debilitating.
I used to do consults for dementia units at nursing homes. It's their recent memory that goes first, so oddly, they can often recall memories from long ago with precise detail and not recall what they had for lunch yesterday. I really enjoyed hearing their stories from long ago, and they seemed to really enjoy telling them. Once, I saw an old audio hobbyist, and he'd tell me about the old wind up Victrola, the tube equipment (he had no particular love for them, it was just what they had), and 'the old wireless' which was a radio that would require him to move a wire along a quartz crystal to change the frequency. (At least I think I remember that ... maybe someone here can correct me.)