Ronny, I was told it hits everyone differently.  There was one gentleman at
my MIL's place that was physically in very good shape (former coach) but the
caregivers told me his ability to talk was one of the first things he lost.
My MIL will sometimes use the wrong word which can be rather cryptic.
Example: one day we had brought her the usual weekly chocolate shake (to
check her dental work) and she kept calling it a cheeseburger.  I've been
told one of the valuable things about Aricept and other drugs like that is
to delays the average length of time for this symptom to show up.

My MIL had been showing small signs and then went through a month of
pronounced decline on speech.  She's come back a bit but is worse than she
was before.  And you're right -- it is hard to watch them struggle to get
out a word or two.

Karen

I've told the story before - about  two years before she died, my MIL's
ability to speak just WENT over a period of about a couple of weeks.
She was about 4 years into the AD, and to that point had developed
fairly typical mid-later AD problems - word finding difficulties,
circumlocution (long shaggy dog stories that never got to a point or
answered a question), repeating herself, lots of problems understanding
what was said to her - even simple questions or directions would often
not get an appropriate response - it was like we were speaking a
foreign language.....probably not helped by her hearing problems, and
her deteriorating ability to read lips and interpolate, which had
always been her backup to her hearing aids.  All that was frustrating,
but you could usually get a no or a yes out of her to a direct
question. However, she underwent a period of fairly rapid deterioration
on the verbal front, and after that point, it was repetitive nonsense
syllables, with the odd intelligible word thrown in (ga,ga, ng,ng, ng,
ba, ba).  Every now and then, she would randomly come out with an
entire sentence that made some sense, but that was rare. Essentially,
after that point, verbal communication was next to impossible.

I don't there is a darned thing you can do to prevent it. If your
mother survives to the end stage of AD (as opposed to being carried off
by something else like Ida was), she will lose the ability to talk.

Level 7 (from Dr. Reisberg's stage definitions - this is the end
stage).
Very severe cognitive decline (Late Dementia or Severe AD). All verbal
abilities are lost. Frequently there is no speech at all - only
grunting. Incontinent of urine, requires assistance toileting and
feeding. Lose basic psychomotor skills, e.g., ability to walk, sitting
and head control. The brain appears to no longer be able to tell the
body what to do. Generalized and cortical neurologic signs and symptoms
are frequently present.

7a - Speech ability limited to about a half-dozen intelligible words
7b - Intelligible vocabulary limited to a single word
7c - Ambulatory ability lost
7d - Ability to sit up lost
7e - Ability to smile lost
7f - Ability to hold up head lost  

Mary G.