Strategies For Communicating With Alzheimers Disease

Here's another great article on Alzheimers disease. The more you know about this disease, the easier it will be to manage it. I hope you enjoy it. If you want to read more, click here...

Speech is frequently affected in Alzheimer’s disease. An understanding of simple speech remains intact during the early stages, but difficulties in finding and expressing the correct word usage can start very early on in the disease.

The Alzheimer sufferer also experiences difficulty in interpreting complex conversations, proverbs and metaphors. In other words, it becomes very difficult to string a complex sentence together.

Later as the Alzheimer’s disease progresses, sentences become difficult to finish. The sufferer will usually wander onto another subject and they often repeat the same words over and over again.

Writing and reading can be affected quite early in the disease, with spelling difficulties becoming apparent. There is also an associated lack of interest in the task involved, and they are very often left uncompleted.

The taking of messages especially over the telephone can prove particularly difficult, and is often the catalyst that uncovers the dementia in the first place. The Alzheimer’s disease sufferer will have difficulty following the conversation. They will probably realise they are having these difficulties become more confused and frightened, which will make their problem worse.

As the Alzheimer’s disease worsens, communication problems increase. As the ability to find the words needed to complete a sentence or become involved in a conversation decreases, other words (paraphasias) are added into the gaps left. This usually means the true meaning of the conversation is lost.

Comprehension skills also decrease; questions may not get answered, because they are not understood, keeping a sentence going often proves too difficult for the sufferer and the often swift changes of subject we all indulge in proves too much for them.

Eventually their whole speech often becomes babbling gibberish, and gradually the Alzheimer sufferer withdraws from talking altogether.

In advanced stages of the disease, communication eventually becomes impossible as the sufferer is usually unable to let even their basic needs be known to others.

In a few Alzheimer’s sufferers, there may be some automatic verbal response on occasion, but usually by this time the burden of communication more often than not falls on the shoulders of relatives, friends and carers.

As a caregiver, your inability to communicate with your loved one can be truly frustrating, but just take it one minute at a time and do the best you can.

You may also want to visit our Resources page, where you'll find links to some of the best Alzheimers resources on the Web.