My husband and I are the court appointed guardian and conservator for my 62 year old sister-in-law who has Alzheimer's. She often has difficulty coming up with the correct word in conversations. I usually know what she wants to say. If I tell her she gets mad if I wait for her to try to figure it out she gets mad. I try to hit a happy medium and let her try for a little bit before I give her the word. Anyone else have this problem?
I am told this sort of increasing difficulty with language is a particular hallmark of my father's flavor of progressive dementia -- fronto temporal dementia (FTD) -- and I have definitely noticed him struggling a bit to find words this year. So far, I find myself automatically leaping in to supply the missing word or words ... it's a reflex ... but I, too, have been wondering if I should try to curtail that behavior. He doesn't get mad, so far, but I understand that isn't an uncommon reaction. It's harder for me not to do it when I'm on the phone, because I can't see his face and so can't "read" what he's experiencing ... i.e., does he look a little frantic, like he wants to be "rescued"? If I say nothing and the silence stretches out, will he think I hung up and went away? and so on.
I have read a few "from the inside" points of view on this, and in those writings, the person with the FTD general preferred to be given at least some time to find the word he/she was seeking. Those authors also wanted people to know that sometimes they had a limited amount of language available to them during the day, and that sometimes, they didn't want to talk because they were "saving up" their words for a specific time later in the day ... it didn't mean that they were mad or upset, just conscious of limitations.
Interested to know what others say on this subject ... I'll keep trying to let him find the words himself, but it's hard, even when I'm there in person. He usually closes his eyes and frowns while he pauses ... I have a mental image of him racing desperately through a tower of locked, unlabeled filing cabinets, completely at a loss as to which one contains the info he needs and how to open it even if he knew. :-(
No, seriously, good luck with your SIL. Blessings to you all.