Garbled speech

Curious about garbled speech and wandering. Mom’s in MC, probably stage 6. Miraculously, her moods are good and she’s extremely well taken care of.

The past few months I’ve noticed her speech is more garbled. She frequently uses mashed up words, and most sentences don’t make sense. She’ll repeat syllables almost like a stutter, but no word.

Also, she has started wandering a LOT. Just up and down the hallways, and into people’s rooms. The staff are pros managing it - even take her on walks around the larger area when it’s slow. I do too. But it’s now near constant, we often walk the halls when I’m visiting.

Is this a new stage of dementia? Just part of progression in stage 6?

Her mood is good much of the time. She participates in activities, we still go to dinner at the nearby diner sometimes, when her one friend she’s still in touch with calls she knows her by name. And she still KNOWS stuff. She still understands me when I tell her about my day sometimes. The contrast is hard to understand. Yesterday I made a joke we should move to another state, and she said “no, I like PA.” I couldn’t believe she knew where we lived. She usually doesn’t. She’s fully incontinent and can’t dress herself etc.

What do you make of it? Stage 6? Normal progression? Just trying to make sense of it all.