When people loose the ability to verbally communicate

[paulinespens]

Hi - I have a mother-in-law who has quite aggressive dementia. She is on tablets to calm her down but since taking them her speech has become very poor. She is no longer able to communicate with anyone, she repeats the same letter 'f' 'f' 'f' 'f' if she is trying to say anything but very occasionally you might get 3 or 4 words from her. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can try and understand her. She cannot write, does not have the ability to draw a picture and can only sometimes point at things that are distressing her.
We have tried to get her to point to pictures to see if we can communicate in that way but all to no avail. Any help or assistance would be really appreciated as we do not seem to be getting anywhere with the Care Home she is in helping. They will only say she is having a good or bad day. Many thanks Pauline

 

[Beate]

My OH had primary progressive aphasia which meant his speech was gradually declining, from long sentences to short ones to single words to nothing. I've never tried at all costs to understand him. I talked to him, I told him he was safe and everything was OK, I smiled, I held his hand and cuddled. That's all you can do at some point.

 

[paulinespens]

My OH had primary progressive aphasia which meant his speech was gradually declining, from long sentences to short ones to single words to nothing. I've never tried at all costs to understand him. I talked to him, I told him he was safe and everything was OK, I smiled, I held his hand and cuddled. That's all you can do at some point.

Thank you for responding - she tries so hard to tell us things and its so distressing when we can't understand her. Swimming is all we can do at the moment with her and keep our fingers crossed that sometimes we get it right.

 

[Camberite]

My husband has reached this point. All he does is talk and mumble, none of makes any sense. I just interject with the odd words like “really”, “I agree” and “of course” or similar. This seems to satisfy him. In his mind he is absolutely convinced he is talking sense, which of course he is not. It is very stressing for you, My husband is happy in his own world and is on tablets to calm him when he gets agitated. Don’t beat yourself up over this you are doing all you can, just continue to reassure and pretend you understand. I unfortunately am dealing with a double whammy, as my husband also has terminal cancer of both liver and lungs and is blissfully unaware of either illness. I am Michael’s full time carer but gets breaks when he attends day centres.

 

[nitram]

I've never tried at all costs to understand him.

I agree with this, when the PWD is obviously struggling to say something trying to guess what they are saying and getting it wrong leads to further distress, similarly agreeing or disagreeing may cause distress.
Hard as it may seem my approach was to seem to be deaf, ignore my wife, and start doing something else as a distraction..

 

[paulinespens]

My husband has reached this point. All he does is talk and mumble, none of makes any sense. I just interject with the odd words like “really”, “I agree” and “of course” or similar. This seems to satisfy him. In his mind he is absolutely convinced he is talking sense, which of course he is not. It is very stressing for you, My husband is happy in his own world and is on tablets to calm him when he gets agitated. Don’t beat yourself up over this you are doing all you can, just continue to reassure and pretend you understand. I unfortunately am dealing with a double whammy, as my husband also has terminal cancer of both liver and lungs and is blissfully unaware of either illness. I am Michael’s full time carer but gets breaks when he attends day centres.

Wow - well done to you for being able to cope with this. Dementia on its own is difficult but your added illnesses makes things even more stressful for you. At the end of the day we manage because we love them and want to do our best for them. Stay strong

 

[lemonjuice]

I've never tried at all costs to understand him. I talked to him, I told him he was safe and everything was OK, I smiled, I held his hand and cuddled. That's all you can do at some point.

My Mum did the same and was 'mute' for the last 2 years. Comprehension was 'shot' anyway and she couldn't respond with facial gestures, eyes or even a hand squeeze, All I could do was sit with her, hold her hand, stroke her face and listen to music together. Sometimes I would talk to her, but what I found worked best was to sing to her.

 

[love.dad.but..]

With Dad...as his understanding was also quite poor by then...I continued the conversation as though I had understood and smiled a lot...it was obvious neither of us could understand each other but that really didn't seem to matter...he seemed contented that he had my attention.

 

[gotanybiscuits?]

Sounds awful. You have my sympathy!

I had a shock with Dad a couple of days ago, but nothing like this.
He was refusing to speak (anger?) due to me failing to defuse a pointless spiralling argument

 

[love.dad.but..]

For me also I felt it was important for dad to feel that I did understand even though I obviously didn't have a Scooby Doo...so if he asked me a question which I could tell not by what he asked because he was incoherent but by his body language and the way his voice pattern changed...I would say things like I don't know or leave that with me and I will find out or just saying something reassuring and then carry on usually until he stopped or nodded off.

 

[sford91]

My mum lost her communication really early on but thankfully is very expressive with her face so we can communicate. We often just talk to her and make her laugh alotvwiyh funny stories etc. the care home have got to recognise them to which is really helpful.

 

[Camberite]

Both Michael’s cancer and his Alzheimers are progressing at an alarming rate. I still get the same support for the day centres etc but he is now losing a lot of weight due to loss of interest in eating or just not knowing how to eat. If I feed him it works a bit better but not all the time, same with his drinks, although he still has a sweet tooth! He sleeps quite a bit, this is mainly due to the morphine he is on and other medication. Sadly I am writing this in tears as for the first time today as I was in the garden he urinated on the living room carpet. I came back from the garden and was absolutely stunned, he was casually doing his shorts up as if he had used the proper toilet, he just couldn’t comprehend why I was upset, if he noticed at all. He isn’t incontinent yet but I fear we are heading in that direction. I am his full time carer and love him dearly but I am getting so stressed now and wonder how much longer I will be able to cope.