Stage 6, still talks up a storm

MotherOfChins

Hi All, up to this point I've just been a lurker, but I really appreciate all the advice and expertise everyone shares in this forum.  Would love to hear your experiences with the below:

My mom, approximately stage 6c of Alz, lives with my husband and I and she still talks up a storm!  While she of course cannot find specific words, will forget what she is talking about mid-thought, shares the same stories over and over - she is still quite verbal. I'm honestly amazed sometimes at how well (and how much!), she still converses.  She hasn't known that my sister and I are her daughters for a year, doesn't recognize herself in the mirror, etc. all classic stage 6 signs, so perhaps progression has just stalled a bit?

Curious how many of you have/had LO's in stage six (or latter) stages that were still quite communicative?

Thanks in advance!

Melanie

harshedbuzz

Hi and welcome.

My dad was freakishly verbal. Prior to his dementia he was a story-teller, life of the party and someone who loved the sound of his own voice. 

As the disease progressed, he told a lot of the same stories. Sometimes his speech seemed scripted in that he would not only repeat the story line but repeat it verbatim. He did sometimes have word finding issues, but he did this as long as I could remember. I have a friend from high school who still talks about the time dad referred to his calves as "shinbacks".

Dad would lose his train of thought but would generally launch into another one of his scripted themes when distracted or lost. He also developed a habit of subvocalizing which seemed like a way of reminding us he was there.

He talked right up until he died. Dad died of complications of aspiration pneumonia; he had a swallowing evaluation earlier that day with a SLP who commented to me how surprised she was by dad's swallowing ability given how verbal he was. She was an attractive woman, and he spent a lot of time flirting with her between bites and sips and telling me about a visit with my sister earlier that day. She asked if my sister wasn't able to visit often and I told her that my sister had died in 1994. 

HB

SusanB-dil

Hi MOC - my MIL is stage 5, and has 'stepped' into stage 6.  When she does, it almost seems as if she is even more verbal.  (actually, when that happens, now that i think about it, she seems to be more frustrated - at things in general, and she goes on a roll)

Mother is stage 6, and yes, she can be rather talkative at times. She is able to call because my brother set up her phone to where she can only make certain phone calls. So when she calls, speaking to her is like a recording on a loop, same conversation each time she calls, and anywhere from 4 to 7 times within the call, before she is satisfied with the conversation.  She may ask how J is... and then next sentence, she may ask if i do have any kids...  and then not connect that J is my child.  and then repeat the same, again. (she used to know J very well, as J is my adult child)  She will tell me, again, about her room, and the people there where she is, and that she doesn't have to cook any more.  and then she will tell me a couple more times.  I don't mind, because I know that this tells me that (most of the time) she still knows who I am.

BassetHoundAnn

My mom is in Stage 6 and talks non-stop. For me as a caregiver it's wearying because she chatters non-stop and expects me to be constantly attentive. For instance there were a few times last fall when we were waiting in an ER for hours and she talked non-stop the whole time. Not conversed, just chattered and expected me to be listening with rapt attention all the while. If I stepped out of the room or, horror, read a book she would get very upset at the straying of my attention. She can kind of hold on to the thread of what's she's saying at times, but she's getting closer to making no sense at all. She often thinks I'm her sister and gets annoyed with me for not remembering things that "we" did as teenagers. There are other ladies she hangs with in memory care and they all talk, and often to each other, but the conversation often doesn't make much sense. 

My mom lost the ability to follow what was being said on TV several years ago. I think she can follow some real-life conversation a bit but she parses maybe only 10 percent of the words.

MotherOfChins

Hi HB, Susan and Ann,

Thank you so much for commenting!  I know that each Alz patient is unique, but per your comments it sounds like my mom is not the only (late-stage) non-stop talker! This is comforting I suppose (LOL), albeit sometimes exhausting!

I recognize some of the other symptoms shared, i.e. the same or similar conversation on loop, having lost the ability to comprehend what she is hearing on the TV, etc.

Virtual hugs for all the caregivers!

GothicGremlin

Hey there Melanie --

My sister is also at late stage 6, and she also has primary progressive aphasia. In spite of all of that, she's pretty verbal.  We talk every day, either in person or on the memory care phone line. She repeats stuff from a minute ago and I just pretend it's the first time I've heard it - which gets hard after about the 10th time I've heard it. She's lost so many words, and I'm always having to play word association to try to figure out what she's trying to say to me.  It's really hard trying to decipher her "code" on the phone.  I'm better at it in person.

She knows who we all are, although she has merged two of our aunts into one person.  She'll stumble over people's names, but she still knows who they are even if she can't always get the name.

On the downside, she has no idea where she is in space, and needs help standing up, and help getting seated in a chair. Her sense of direction is completely gone. She wouldn't be able to find her way from her room to the dining room if her life depended on it. The distance is probably 15 steps. She's doubly incontinent, but memory care has that mostly under control.

We just recently had to put her on anti-anxiety meds because she had become afraid of pretty much everything. She told me that the fear was causing her not to be able to do anything in her room. I still have no idea what that means.  The meds have kicked in now, and her personality is now back to much the way it always was - which is great.  I'm so thankful that (for now) she's still recognizably Peggy.