What We've Got is Failure to Communicate

DJnAZ

Communication with my wife has become extremely difficult. Even simple communication is almost impossible now. Her main issues are language, communication, concentration and memory problems. 

Being new to care giving I'm having trouble understanding, accepting and dealing with someone who answers almost any question with uh-huh. At times it appears she is trying to process information and form a response, but her replies rarely make any sense. Mispronounced words, incoherent sentences and completely out of context statements.

I will ask what she means, tell her I do not understand or say to her she isn't making sense. At the same time my frustration and blood pressure begin to increase. 

A friend who has been through this with her father sent me several You Tube videos by Natalie Edmond, PsyD. The one in the attached link is topical for me. A four-step method that I hope will help me, as the Dr Edmond said, stop the arguing and maybe make a meaningful connection. I am cautiously optimistic.

I searched this site for Dr Edmond and found pervious posts with links to her videos, but not this one.

https://youtu.be/fWPyzDercyM

Crushed

If I got an uh-huh Id be thrilled  

Ed1937

I think Dr. Natalie is very good. There are others who are also very good. Teepa Snow is excellent, and also had youtube videos. 

If you want to see what is available from Dr. Natalie, do a youtube search for Dementia Careblazers. There are currently 290 videos available by her.

extex

When an alz patient reaches the point of zero short term memory they are unable to respond because they have nothing on file in their memory to respond to.  If I remark on the weather, the dog or whatever I always get the same response from my wife, huh?  This is advantageous in one respect in that I am able to openly discuss her condition, recent actions and plans for the days/weeks ahead with my helper caregiver and my wife has no clue that we are talking about her.  A very sad state of affairs and a disease that really sucks!

Arrowhead

Conversations with my wife are the same way. She often asks me questions that don’t make any sense. I’ve learned that it doesn’t make any difference what answer I give her because by the time I do answer, she has already forgotten the question.

Rescue mom

My DH with Alzheimer’s responded to almost any question by nodding and saying yes, or uh huh. And it did cause some issues, until I realized that 98 percent of the time he had no idea or understanding of what he’d just agreed to. I still usually ask (tell) but it’s really just me making noises. I don’t expect him to remember that I did so; if he does, that’s a bonus.

The kinda funny part is, it taught me something about conversations in general. People would talk briefly to DH and tell me “we had a great conversation! He is doing really well!” DH did nothing but smile and nod, that was enough.

as Arrow said, DHs questions that made no sense were  more of a problem. If I wasn’t really careful, trying to get a better idea of what he was asking, often led to anger. But a whole lot of times, by the time I could respond, he already forgot what he was asking about.

jfkoc

A thought.... do be certain that you 

have your wifes full attention 

that you are at eye level

you are speaking slowly in a low tone

the sentence is simple

you allow time for hearing and understanding

and that the question has close to a yes/no response

Conversation stops way to soon but you will likely have some form of communication even if it is a smile.

Oh, often others have posted about singing instead of talking.

Jeff86

The disappearance of meaningful conversation is one of the harder losses on the AD journey.

With my DW, it’s like a lamp with a faulty wire—working sometimes, flickering sometimes, off sometimes.  At times she is rational and understandable.  But other times a question or a comment makes no sense (can’t know inside her head what the thought process was), or there are made-up words, or the words are intelligible but the way they’re strung together isn’t.

I have learned not to ask her to clarify.  She simply can’t.  And I don’t want to create awareness in her that she is not making sense.  So I just go along with whatever she says, and agree, saying meaningless phrases like—you’re so right, or I think so too, or it’s all going to work out okay.  Those types of responses seem to work, for her.