Posted 5-2-19
One of the interestingly woeful things about mom’s condition is the devolution of her speech. Not so much the words themselves (largely word salad/Brain Bandit Babble), but the gauntlet that she seems to go through to make it happen. It is truly heartbreaking.
Three Significant characteristics:
- She searches everywhere (hard) with her eyes for her words. You know how when you are searching your brain database for the second verse of that hit song from Adele or Patsy Cline you typically point your eyes in a fixed direction depending on what you are trying to recall? These are called by people more intelligent than me “Eye Accessing Cues”. Whole fields of study are tied to these cues that promise to be able to demonstrate when a person is lying or just making stuff up, to make recall easier, and a host of other sometimes debatable claims. While this is a fascinating field of study, what interests me is that mom seems to be searching in all directions looking for a word. Tragically, mom looks like Velma Dinkley from Scooby Doo groping around without her glasses decrying “My Glasses! I can’t see anything without my glasses!!”, except mom scrambles trying to find any valid word or partial sentence. It, frankly, breaks my hear anew every “conversation” we have. 🙁
- Mom often speaks in a cadence/rhythm that is very similar to the way she did before she was truck with this stinkin’ disease and she looks to me for encouragement that she is getting her point across to me. I have gave up on giving the “I don’t understand” face and replaced it with the “Oh, I see” look. I see no reason to try to correct her in any sense. I encourage when she seems sad, I smile when her talking seems to make her happy and I agree a lot until it seems like something I shouldn’t affirm.
- She can still understand when she doesn’t make sense… sometimes. Similarly, she knows when her piano playing is less accurate too. I hope she isn’t reading my face cues that she makes no sense. I would do anything to NOT hurt her feelings in this way.
I am not sure my point or the “take with” /cornbread crumb is for this piece except to say that this disease really sucks and I hate what it has done to my amazingly bright mom and the Sweet 17. I would love your take on Eye Accessing Cues. Is the fact that she looks everywhere for words actually her just looking for visual images, then finding none, looking for other cues? Could a person be taught to use their eyes to recall better? Is there a “mind palace” like Sherlock Holmes cited as his storehouse of file cabinets that he can disappear into to recall facts?
Yesterday mom was still doing well other than being confined to a wheelchair due to weakness. She was sharper mentally than some days. She had another medicine change that hopefully will be kicking in soon to reduce her tiredness.
Oh, for days ahead when mom no longer searches for the right thing to say.
#EndALZ
Some further reading:
What? Another Link??
Wow…you clicked and read these. You deserve this Link 😉
https://memory.ucsf.edu/eye-movements-dementia