different part of the brain?

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augustwestern - 13 Oct 2005 21:57 GMT

My MIL who has vascular dementia (although her young internist says she has
AD) often talks quite animatedly in her sleep. Today, when I went in to give
her meds, she was just going on at length about the bridge game she was
involved in in her dreams. She was just laughing away like she was just
totally engrossed at a party. It's great that she can find such a level of
joy in her dreams. What has also surprised me is that her verbal function
and vocabulary while dreaming is not impaired. It's like she is forty years
younger. I've also noted that her verbal function also increases
dramatically when talking to strangers or visitors but as soon as they are
gone, so is her memory of meeting them or anything that was said. Dementia
is so weird. AW

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Alan Meyer - 14 Oct 2005 00:55 GMT

> My MIL who has vascular dementia (although her young internist says she has
> AD) often talks quite animatedly in her sleep. Today, when I went in to give
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> gone, so is her memory of meeting them or anything that was said. Dementia
> is so weird. AW

I hope you didn't wake her up until the dream was over :)

It sounds like your MIL can get her head together a little
better when she's stimulated by new experiences. Maybe
there's a senior center or some other place she can visit
to meet people and get that kind of stimulation on a more
regular basis.

Alan

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Octavia - 15 Oct 2005 18:09 GMT

Wow - same here on the talking in her sleep!! My MIL also has vascular
dementia, but one of her doctors does call it AD. And she also speaks out
quite plainly in her sleep. She seems to have like a reoccurring dream of a
small child & she wants him to get in bed with her or to stop jumping on the
bed. It happens about 1 - 2 hours after she goes to bed. I'm usually reading
at that point & it took me a couple of times to get used to it. If anyone
didn't know & heard her, you would swear it is really happening. Although
it is hard to tell, we think she is probably going back about 20 - 30 years
when the boys (her grandsons) were little.

And I completely agree about dementia being weird!! Some days it is like a
new zoo, never can tell what is going to happen.... It's fascinating, yet
extremely sad.

> My MIL who has vascular dementia (although her young internist says she
> has
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> gone, so is her memory of meeting them or anything that was said. Dementia
> is so weird. AW

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