Has anyone else had as much trouble talking to their spouse? It is like pulling teeth most of the time. I have tried all sorts of things like making the sentences short, looking at him when I talk to him, using his name, etc. etc. etc. Some of the tips work and some of them don't. I was going through my email earlier and found an email from caregivers.com and it is so good that I had to share it. It is found at www.caring.com/article/early-alzheimers-tips. Even though I am dealing with it now I learned some things I didn't think about. I could never understand why he would never start a conversation, all he would do is just sit there all day until I said something and I just thought he was being a stick in the mud or didn't care about me enough to talk to me. I hate this disease more and more every day but understanding it doesn't make it go away but it does help me to deal with it.
My wife also rarely initiates a conversation, and then only to ask me if something she thinks of is OK. I usually have no idea what she is talking about, so just tell her that I have it under control. If I make a comment to her about something I have seen, read, or noticed her reply has no bearing on what I said. When we are driving in the car she often keeps up a steady stream of chatter, none of which makes any sense, and is ofter interspersed with "Yup". This is what makes this disease so hard. We used to have long conversations about many different topics and enjoyed the interchange of ideas.
I have brought to the top for you a discussion on the disappearing conversation. As you will see from the amount of responses, it is a BIG deal with spouses.
http://www.thealzheimerspouse.com/memorytechniques.htm - this is on the left side of the home page (www.thealzheimerspouse.com) - Memory and Communication tips. When the page loads, scroll down to the section on "How to speak so your spouse will understand you". Although it sounds as if you have tried all of the techniques.
Losing ability to communicate is all part of the disease - the brain damage.
I cannot get the link you posted to work. Please check it and re-post - Thanks.
DW does not talk much, she has trouble with words and complete her thoughts. I usually can figure it out. It does drive me nuts some time not being able to figure out what she is saying
My husband doesn't start conversations. When he speaks it is usually one of the following:
1. Where we are going today 2. What am I making to eat 3. When he's going to have his next cigarette 4. Repetitive questions regarding the above three
Other than the above he usually just points at things and says "look at that". Everything is a "that" almost no use of nouns anymore. I feel bad when I can't figure out what he is talking about because usually he will just get frustrated and say "never mind".
John's vocabulary is pretty much limited to yes or short phrases he's just heard on TV. However, yesterday when I joined him for lunch at the NH, he smiled real big and clearly sang the first few lines of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." Awww cs
That was our song cs. I would sing it to dh and he would join in and sing with me. When he first started having trouble communicating, I would try to be patient and give him time to come up with the right word. If he couldn't think of it, I would say it if I knew what he was trying to say. He would mix up words. Calling a tree a truck or telling me he put it in the oven when he meant the refrigerator. Just enough word mix ups to make me have to guess what he was trying to say. No talking at all the last two months. Not until the week he died, I walked into the room and he looked up and said "I love you more". Those four words I won't forget. The last thing he said was the day before he died. The aide was washing his backside while I had my arms around him holding him on his side. He ask who was doing that and I told him I had to make sure he was clean. He said "ok" and went back to sleep.
Thank you for all your comments! I am sorry that you weren't able to click on to the link. I will have to recheck it and make sure it works, it is the first time I tried doing that. Marsh, I agree that this is one of the hardest parts of the disease, I was wondering if it was different for men than it is for women but it doesn't seem to matter. At first I would get upset with him and be offended because he was not talking to me but once I found out that this was part of the dementia I tried(it wasn't easy) to come up with other ways to handle it than to get offended. cs, what a wonderful memory!
I have been having a lot of problems lately communicating with DH. If he needs something, he says I need....... - he can't think of what it is or find the right words. The other day, he cut himself shaving. When he called out to me I could not see where he was bleeding. It wasn't much, but he just stood there. I finally noticed and put a band aid on it. Last night I saw some anti-diarrhea pills on his night stand. Since he has seemed constipated recently, I questioned what he was doing with them and told him not to take them. This morning as he was trying to read the paper he said he had to get his other glasses, another problem. He came back with the anti-diarrhea pill. He said he 'could not go' , I took the pill from him and tried to explain he did not and should not take this pill and took it from him. I have taken all these pill away. This is just one example of our lack of communication. He does not seem to understand anything I say and I am having more and more trouble understanding his needs. He rarely starts a conversation unless something is bothering him. He is in stage 5/6, has problems recognizing people outside the family, problems reading, opening his computer and sleeps a lot. He is on Razadyne and Namenda.
Mary how old is your dh and when was he dx? My dh is on Razadyne and Namenda too and is in stage 5/6. This communication problem is getting worse every day. I get lots of "what?". And, I get the beginning of a lot of statements that end long before I can figure out what he was trying to say. And, the use of words that do not make any sense is really getting bad.
DH is 73 and was diagnosed in 2005, 6 years ago. However, he had symptoms for 5-7 years before that. He goes to a day program twice a week. I thought at first he was not as far gone as the others, but quickly changed my mind. I am just wondering how long this can go on. He can dress himself with lots of advise from me. He can shower and brush his teeth with prompting. I never leave him alone because I am afraid he might decide to take a walk. He has trouble walking.