Question:
I have a friend who has Alzheimers. I think it may be frontal lobedementia. She has been 'sick' for a few years and last year becamenon verbal. Now she is going to daycare twice a week and is talkingagain, but only to repeat whatever others say. I thought thatdementia patients forget how to speak as the illness progresses.Apparently not. Does the brain forget how to think of words or asentence? What happens here?

Can anyone give me some suggestions???

Answer: From what I read when studying Frontal Lobe Dementia because of my FIL, thewords are there in the brain. Early in the disease, the pathways between thewords and the mouth don't always connect, so patients can't 'find' the wordthey want, or can't say it in sequence. Later, the pathways that tell themuscles how to move to form the sounds degrade, so speech is garbled andeating/swallowing becomes difficult. Then comes full slack mouth, drooling,and inability to swallow food.

We all know about aphasia - the inability to find the right words,even when you know what you want to say, a source of considerablefrustration to anyone with a head injury or stroke. That is certainlya factor in the speech decline in dementia, since it's hard for theperson to express an idea if they can't come up with the words, orthey start substituting words and expressions. At the same time,agnosia has started - the eyes can see an object, but the brain losesits ability to interpret what it is seeing - so the person know longerrecognizes that what is in front of them is a chair, a cup, or theirnephew Harold, so even if they could come up with the right word, theywouldn't be able to name what they are looking at.