Quick question I

blacksparky

My DW with EOAD has been losing her vocabulary in the last couple of months. Nothing that comes out of her mouth makes any sense. The words are clear but the composition of the sentence makes no sense I’m thinking because of her shrinking vocabulary. My question is do they also lose their ability to understand what someone is saying to them faster or slower than their vocabulary? I realize that their memory goes but not sure if they know what is being said or not.

terei

It sounds like you are describing ‘word salad’. This is more than just a loss of vocabulary. IMO the area of her brain that controls speech is being compromised. The area of the brain that ‘understands’ speech is different. one or the other or both may be affected. You should be able to determine whether she understands what you say, even though she is cannot answer sensibly. Ie: does she follow directions or understand when you say ‘let’s go in the kitchen.’

annie51

Over time my DH went from a few misused words in a sentence to almost completely indistinguishable language. Lately, I do think he’s progressed to not understanding what I’m saying. I have to point, demonstrate, use whatever visual cues if I can. I think @terei is right that it is separate.

elainechem

My hubby had aphasia. He couldn't find the words he needed when he was trying to speak. I think that he could understand a little more than he could express. I made it a point to get his attention, speak more slowly and used fewer words.

sandwichone123

The very first symptom we noticed with my dh was the loss of nouns. He was still able to communicate for a long time, but figuring out the subject and object of sentences was largely a guessing game. Increasingly it was harder to guess, and eventually I realized he also didn't really understand what I was saying either, beyond rote things I would say over and over.

HollyBerry

I'm starting to notice that she is losing the nouns, too - thanks for this description. And I feel like receptive and expressive language are not in sync. For a while now, she wants a single word answer to her questions even if the question is actually asking for an explanation. Example - "what am I doing today?" She wants me to say "nothing," or "senior social program," but not an actual discussion of what she's doing.

Another example - she looks at the dog's water dish and determines it needs to be filled (correct), but can't quite formulate the question "how do I add more water to this?" and it comes out "what do I do with this?" I have two choices: I can say "add more water from the sink (I know this is what she actually wants to do)", or I can say "bring it to the sink and dump it out and refill it (this one will get lost because there are 3 parts)." But today she doesn't know where the sink is or how she gets water. I can direct her to the sink, she can be standing in front of it, but the word "sink" and the idea that water comes out of the faucet just aren't there today. So I hand her a mug from the counter and turn on the water, and then all the pieces come together and she takes the mug of water to the dog dish.

My interpretation is that there is both a language issue here and a cognition issue. If you don't have the word for sink available to you, and someone tells you to go to the sink, you can get hung up on all those kitchen appliances and which one you actually need right now. A faucet doesn't look like anything special until the water comes out. So even if she identifies the problem correctly (dog dish needs water) she needs to find the words to ask the question, then decode the words I use in my answer. No wonder she wants one word answers!

And it's really inconsistent. She goes all day at her senior social program and probably never runs into this sort of problem, and then comes home and it all falls apart.

Looking back at the original question, my mom had vascular dementia (not Alzheimers, which my partner has) and she had lots of trouble with expressive language but retained the ability to listen to others, follow directions, watch tv, etc. We joked that we needed a magic decoder ring to figure out what she was trying to say, but there was always intention behind her speech, just not always the right words at the right time.

blacksparky

Thank you everybody for all the awesome information that you have given me. Every time I post, I get more tools for my tool box.to care for my LO.