My mom was diagnosed with vascular dementia last year. She is a retired school teacher in Texas, aged 63 (TRS does not put into Social Security). For the last 10 years or so since she has been retired from teaching, she has been working for my dad as an office aid. At one point, we got the letter from the Social Security Administration stating she had her 40 quarters, but then last year we got another stating she hadn't met her 40 quarters. My dad's CPA lost the first letter which showed she was eligible to receive Social Security with her 40 quarters, so my dad kept putting into the system until things got cleared up (which happened to be this past April). So, since all this paperwork got messed up initially, she has been diagnosed with dementia and hasn't really worked for about 1 1/2 years, though my dad has been considering her to be on paid-leave and is still paying her social security taxes, etc. My question is: how can we apply for Disability (she is definitely disabled) without messing up her ability to still get Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare? Wouldn't the fact that my dad kept paying SS taxes show that she was working even after she became disabled? Or do they consider medical leave? Can you get Social Security retirement and disability at the same time? Is there a reduction in what she would get since she also gets teacher retirement pay? This is so confusing and we are not sure if we even want to hassle with the disability application since it takes about 2 years to get and by that point she will have reached retirement age of 65 and can start getting her Medicare benefits. Man, oh, man, that was a lot! thanks for your help.....