How did your LO's speech change? My DH has been just in the last few days not speaking complete sentences. Like "I am going outside to look at the clouds." is instead "Going to clouds" and then he walks away. He does what he says, or I think he says he is going to do because when I check on him nothing is amiss, I feel like that is what is happening though, his ability to speak is diminishing.
DW has been not able to talk in complete sentences for 6 months or more. I know what she is going to say before she says it anyway. How do you change the TV channel?
My husband has FTD and he has trouble with word finding and sometimes substituting of words. Everything is a "that". The other day he saw the hamper was full and wanted me to put "that" into the "theatre". I now have to have him show me what he wants since I can't always understand him. He doesn't seem to notice there is a problem.
Up until this week, DH's speaking ability was really pretty good. However, I have just noticed in the last few days that he is having a problem "finding" the right word or words. For instance, we have a new umbrella for our outside table. He has referred to it as the "tent", the "awning" - but never the umbrella. Our fountain has become "that one with water". He speaks very clearly - so I can at least understand him.
My husband's speaking ability started going almost 5 years before diagnosis. At first it was lost words, then mixed up words like yes instead of no and left instead of right. Then he began to slur so badly no one but me could understand. Finally he just quit trying. He could still manage an occasional "yeah" when he went into the nursing home, has not been able to manage even that for at least 6 months. He has FTD.
My husband also has FTD. His speaking ability has declined over the past 2 years to basically nothing but jabber. Although he is able to say swear words, as plain as day. As we were walking behind another resident...who does have a big behind, he said as plain a day " Look at the ass on that" thankfully, she did not hear him. Some days he says nothing.
My uncle who suffered AD also had problems with words...in fact that was just about the first thing that caught anyone's notice and it was thought he had had a stroke..but it was none of that. One day he could not recall the word for rain drops so he called it " those things that fall down on a cloudy gloomy day". I have noticed that my DH is asking what words mean..I can think of 4 times..one was " what does unrelenting mean?" and the other day he asked what de javu meant..This is from a man who had a vast vocabulary and writing ability. Is this how the words start to be lost by them asking what words mean?
My wife's ability to speak has diminished to where she rarely connects more than a word or two and then it is mostly what I refer to as reflex responses. If someone asks he if she is hungry or thirsty or tired she may respond "Yes I am" but if you asked her a question that requires thought she cannot respond at all. She does, however, babble incessantly throughout the day.
Before my Sharon lost virtually all of her speech she would also substitute made up words for things but would also simply miss the mark by an inch or two. One day she was standing at the bay-window that looks out over our yard and I asked her what she was looking at. "Baby bears" she said. I knew there were no bears in our yard so I walked over to see and there below were two spotted fawns. I smiled and hugged her and said "And cute little bears too".
I miss those moments as weird as they were. Now she is like a zombie. I wish I knew where the end of this was. I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway... I have figured out how to make fire but I am sick to death of crab.
Thank you everyone for your comments. Some of them were funny even though losing speech is not funny. My husband was one that always prided himself on his grasp of the english language. He went to 4 years of college and was always correcting me on my speech but now he is losing it and sometimes it really bothers him but I don't try to correct him because I know how much it bothers him. That's why I appreciate what you did Thunder, because it doens't seem to me that it is important to correct them on it. Terry, I am glad that you brought up the discussion for me.