My dad is 81 and he’s having a real hard time finding his nouns. As a recent example, he was trying to tell me he tripped over the door to his dishwasher. Even though he was staring right at it, he couldn’t come up with the word “dishwasher”. I had to fill in the blank for him after he had give me enough of a description (”you put your knives and forks in it”) for me to understand what he was talking about.
I bought him some crossword puzzles and some “circle the word” puzzles but so far he hasn’t tried any of them. The man has a Ph.D in information science and a Master’s in Mathematics. It’s disheartening to see him like this.
He invented a whole new symbolism and methodology for modeling constraints in relational database relationships (I should know, I was his copy editor for his Ph.D. thesis). Seeing him like this is both disheartening and frightening.
Could it be small vessel disease? We have a relative who has that and found that their nutrition seems to be a factor. Apparently having a protein powder, active forms of the B vitamins, antioxidants and multiminerals has been really helpful.
In sum, some things that look like one problem that may be intractable may actually be another with good options.
There are a few other supplements this person is now taking that could be helping, too. It was amazing the new level of memory and talking was the last time talking with this person, from the prior times.
It is terrible, we went through it- horrible disease or condition. There’s quite a bit of helpful advice now on the net- we didn’t know anything about it when we had to deal with it. Had to ,earn by making mistakes, many actually. We just didn’t know what was going on. Thought in the beginning the person was just being difficult on purpose- later we found out what was wrong an how to handle it.
AS THE Who song goes, I hope I die before I get old.
Engage with your father! Converse with him! Ask him to help you recall details from your childhood! Don't let it appear as though you were subjecting him to an exercise! Play word games with him!
Good luck, and keep up the good work!
Regards,
Is it possible he suffered a small stroke and has anomic aphasia? Perhaps a MRI might be in order, to check it out.
I have read that it is not indicative of dementia/alzheimers if someone is unable to name something if you are able to describe its function.
Who knows? So many suppositions for cognitive decline. Almost to the point where I believe there wont be a “cure” for it because the industry has become too lucrative for pharma.
Put your father on a ketogenic diet. This can be tremendously helpful for disorders of age-related cognitive impairment. It has worked very well for someone in our family. I don’t think she’ll ever be 100% again but after the dietary changes you couldn’t tell there were ever any cognitive deficits. It’s worth a shot.