A lot of folks don't appreciate the black & white nature of a DNR. At my mother's group home, the head nurse told me a story of a man who started choking on his breakfast. They were unable to clear his airway, called 911, and EMTs were able to get him breathing again. She got into trouble for violating his DNR. My neighbor shared with me his doctor's comment that their mother's DNR would preclude antibiotics to treat pneumonia.
I went over my own mother's DNR papers several times, but there was never any chance at nuance with this legal document. I held off signing her DNR until it made sense — the point where a hospital admission could not possibly result in an eventual release. Many life-threatening complications require better judgement than a single page of blindly copy-pasted instructions.
Depending on the prognosis, what you describe is a feature, not a bug. Pneumonia and aspiration of food (often these are causally linked) is one of the more likely causes of death in advanced dementia. If well-meaning staff are running interference here (hello, feeding tube!) you can wind up living considerably longer in a state where you no longer recognize anyone, are bedfast, incontinent and have no real ability to communicate.
I went over my own mother's DNR papers several times, but there was never any chance at nuance with this legal document. I held off signing her DNR until it made sense — the point where a hospital admission could not possibly result in an eventual release. Many life-threatening complications require better judgement than a single page of blindly copy-pasted instructions.