An interesting, and somewhat puzzling, dementia behavior I have never heard anyone talk about...

My wife does that! And also digs out old hallmark cards & reads them & who they're from over & over. If its 1 of her birthday cards, she thinks its her birthday, if its a valentine card, she thinks its valentines day. Hang in there!

IMO, they see the words respond by reading, quickly forget and do it again. Each time they read it, it is like the first time. Without their short term memory, so that they don’t realize they have already said that aloud. You would not believe how many times a day I’m asked, “ would you like some coffee?” I feel very Zin when I answer each time, no thanks, I’m good.

I am not a medical professional, but I think if this is the only "skill" that she has left, she is going to hang onto it/in this case, verbalize it. God bless her.

My mom reads aloud, also. She loves game shows with words. She reads all street signs and posters on the wall at doctor offices, etc. She repeats anything, if she still sees it after a minute or two. I can see why HGTV would be tough, because the letters are constantly showing.
Off subject ideas: Another interesting talent, she can sort cards by suit & put in order. I shuffle, & she does it again. She also loves watching musical videos, especially Claire Crosby, the 7yr old with a beautiful voice.

God Bless you!

My husband reads the newspapers, we have two every day, all day long over and over again from about ten in the morning until four five o'clock and then after dinner, he might watch some t.v. which I'm not sure he really watches or understand anymore because if you ask him a question about the program he can't give you an answer about it. He seems content so I let him do what he wants to do. Breaks your heart though

My mom recently passed at 96 with dementia. She always loved watching tv. At some point she started telling me that everyone was either incarcerated on drugs, porn star, stripper, etc. All bad things. She'd say things like, did you see Kelly Clarkson killed her children and she's dying? I would show her Kelly singing happily and tell her that she is fine and she would say that's cause she went to rehab! Towards the end she didn't want to watch tv at all.

My mother became ill with viral encephalitis in 2016. It affected her left, front temporal lobe. It wreaked havoc with her short-term memory, organizational skills, and ability to discern some new information. My sister also believes that mother may have had dementia coming on as well but that has not been decisively diagnosed. She came to live with me in Georgia after her hospitalization and rehab since she could not live alone in Alabama. On trips back and forth (my dad was still alive at the time in a nursing home with progressing dementia and physical issues, and all her doctors were in AL) mother would read all the road signs. Traffic around Atlanta and on I-20 would slow us down due to road work. It drove me crazy when she would read every sign about how much further the road work was from 20 miles, then 15, and so forth. One time in the car we were listening to the last quarter of a big football game. Our team was losing but she wanted to listen. Every minute she kept saying they’re going to fire him, meaning the coach. After about the 10th time, I turned it off. She was able to go to assisted living back home and is okay, but conversations are small talk about the weather and her asking what we’ve been doing. She can’t keep her days straight because she forgets to look at her calendar and also takes a lot of naps, which throws her off. She is all absorbed with watching the news and tries to read all the captions when they just repeat themselves or identify whose on screen. I really think it’s just something in the brain that had them focused on “visual” words.

What a GoodBird you are, Hugs. My Mom reads signs too but doesn't do the repeating yet. What she does do is get involved in every show she or I change the channel to. I like to watch Family Feud and she starts calling out answers that are arleady 'up there' or she gets sidetracked with what people look like or whatever. It is hard to watch tv with her because she is a talker. I don't think it is dementia as much as her personality. I don't know.
The verbal sign reading when we are out and about gets me sometimes because she gets to see all the signs I would never notice (because I'm driving) and she blurts out words or part of the sign. Should I say hey did you see that? she doesn't-it could be a bear in the road and she's reading the specials sign in front of McDonalds. But we make it work and she and I get along better than we ever have since she is living on her own and not with me so I can and will bear anything and we stay engaged without too much strife. That said, I'm sorry that your Mom is slipping away. The suggestion to put it on closed caption might help her if she can follow along with it.
I don't know if this helped you or not but I am sending hugs to you and your Mom. take care

Repetition is common, as they get "stuck" on something. My mother hasn't watched TV in a long time, partly due to hearing issues and most likely while still living in her own place she couldn't remember how to turn it on, use the remote, etc. She liked watching "good" stories and the late news, but that stopped at some point before we moved her to MC. Reading was/is still a thing for her. Magazines, Sunday paper, esp the sales flyers (her big hobby over the years - bargain shopping!) During a recent visit, she had a flyer and kept pointing to a pair of slip on shoes, saying how much she liked them and they are only $20! And repeat. I liken it to a scratch on a record - it gets stuck and keeps repeating until you can give it a little nudge to move on (distraction, redirect focus.) Of course then it moves along to the next "scratch"!

In your case, it just happens to be the TV. If she can't really follow the story or what is being presented in a program, she CAN focus on that static display. It just sits there, unchanging, so it might get "stuck" in her head. As others noted, signs on walls, billboards, street signs, license plates, whatever. If mom gets a note from staff (due to hearing issue, often they respond with a note), she will periodically take it out and read it over and over. Same with a calendar. Think of when you were a kid and you played games during a car ride - find all these items, count the telephone poles, etc. Like lisah13 says, they are like toddlers at this point, only in reverse. If you can redirect her to some other activity, something that might occupy her time, it can help, but because the short term memory is shot, it won't be long before they move back into that "scratch".

If she can still read, perhaps some children's books? Lots of pictures, some words, to keep her mind busy? If she (and others) read aloud over and over, you'll just have to learn how to tune it out. Simple responses if they look to you for anything while reading out loud, as you would with a toddler.

HI there..
Wwell, I can tell you that my last client had dementia. She was a Teacher her whole life. & proud.
same issues I had! I would try to sit with her & watch tv... but dangit everytime I tried she should start reading aloud..Then ask me a question!
I would say, I don't know becuz you are talking thru the program & I can't hear!" Plz read quietly. Funny I sounded like the teacher.
She then apologized, said ok, i'll shut up, & within 5 secs, start up again.
So there's others that are going thru it..& yes probably something they still have control of...reading.
Its irritating but I quickly knew, watching tv anymore was out.
Sad sad disease to watch.

I compare some of my mother's dementia behaviors to that of my 2 year old granddaughter - and they are spot on many times. Repetition is important for toddlers, and now my mother is becoming my 86 year old toddler - therefore repetition is part of her life now. She doesn't read the tv over and over, but she does read items around the house (grocery list, birthday card, etc.) or repeat statements several times in a conversation. Any of these "toddler-like" behaviors that annoyed me at first, I realize it's how it is now, and pray for more patience.

My mom did the same thing when we moved her to the nursing home. She would read everything on the tv during the commercials. She may have done that in her own home unbeknownst to us to keep her mind sharp. She was an avid word search puzzler and wrote in a journal everyday. When she was at her worst she would call out letters like “I need a b. An a.” Etc. I started writing down the letters thinking it would spell a word but I thinking she was still playing her word searches out loud out of habit. It’s so sad to watch her frustration. God bless you and yours

My mother reads the words on a tv screen out loud, so we tried closed captions in the hope it might entertain her. Unfortunately the words were too fast for her to read and frustrated her. She used to read the daily newspaper almost cover to cover, including comics, and did the simpler of the crossword puzzles, but no longer can comprehend that sort of thing. I am thinking it is reflex action, something done out of habit rather than desire. About the best I can say is that she becomes absorbed in that habit, which on turn stops her from crying or throwing a tantrum.

I have not heard of the reading issues, but you can pretend you are watching with me. I too watch alone or turn it off because my husband talks (sort of) thru anything i put on. ALZ is a horrible monster that has destroyed our "quiet time". I have nothing to offer but understanding of your plight.

My 86 yr old mother who does not have a dementia diagnosis despite us telling the MD we think she has many dementia symptoms, reads all food ads in newspapers out loud..front to back... she reads her magazines and newspapers out loud...drives the family crazy..

Yes, my mom would verbalize any sign, whether at the doctor's office, driving down the road - all the street signs as we were driving. It was something she could still do! She didn't watch a lot of TV, ever, and couldn't manage the remote control, as her dementia progressed. She would still read a magazine and take notes in the early stages of her dementia but that stopped after a couple of years. I remember her reading the signs on the walls in the nursing home, but she could not really have a conversation at that point. I don't think she understood the signs but could still say the words!

My 85 yo mom has done something similar a few times - once she went as far as to try to call the phone numbers on the commercials at the same time because the commercial "told her to". I took her cell phone from her (she couldn't really remember how to use it anymore anyway). It is disturbing because she'll loudly say the numbers over and over again and gets very irritated when whatever it is she expects to happen doesn't. She had a rapid decline recently and was put on a low dose of Seroquel. That has helped a lot.

Has she always been a reader? I would try a simple book with pictures to see if she might enjoy that. As a reader myself, I cannot imagine not having something around to read. I always keep captions on when I watch TV due to mild hearing loss myself. Good luck and God bless. When they are gone, we will wish we had these days back.

I once took a friend's mother to an appointment because the friend was out of town and no family member was available. The mother had dementia. We had to wait a REALLY long time in the examining room, and during that very long wait, my friend's mother read out loud a few signs on the walls of the room, over and over and over.

If she is unable to follow a show now by watching (my guess too much info too fast to process) maybe this is her way of feeling some control, she focuses on the letters/words she can follow to distract from the picture and talking she can’t. Might she be happier with a story or something to actually read while you are watching tv maybe? That allows you to be together in the same room just not following the same story the way you used to. The other possibility is maybe putting the program on an iPad for her or something with the caption on so she can read and follow the way that’s easiest for her while you watch the tv. Not sure if that would stop her reading out loud but maybe if she’s hearing (from the tv) what she’s reading the need to read out loud won’t be as prevalent? I know my mom likes watching things on her iPad over the tv, I think she feels more in control and free to interpret the way she “chooses” because it’s just her watching and in control (we’ll sort of, she can’t seem to grasp the pause feature, everything is “live” as far as she’s concerned). She also uses an earbud as she is deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other so this helps her hear.

My husband reads the channel identifier in the corner of the screen as well as the upcoming show name. A lot of times he asks me what does that mean. When we’re out in the car, he’ll read license plates of the cars in front of us and signs, store names as well.

Yes, my mom reads whatever is on the tv and will even try to associate what she's reading on the tv or on the cover of a magazine with other things happening in the room. I've noticed this association thing going on for a while. She'll suddenly remember something that happened days before and put it with the present in very bizarre ways. If I'm having trouble filling out a health form for her, she thinks the information will be on the tv, that the commercial is somehow explaining the answers to the health form to me. If your grandmother can't follow the story on the tv, she might be trying to make sense of it by reading HGTV. Try turning on the captions. Some of the residents at my mom's assisted living facility like the captions, even when they can hear. But for my mom the captions just confuse her. It's too much information to see, read, and hear the story.

My Mom does this with the calendar. She says what appointment do we have tomorrow and picks up her calendar and it begins! We go appointment by appointment and she will go through the entire year and then start over again. She has done this up to 5 times! Like she is stuck in a loop.

Used to aggravate me terribly but now I can follow her along, let her get to the end of the month (after all she is going to forget it all in a few moments!) then redirect with some other activity. Mom, lets work on your puzzle, Mom, its happy hour! Here Mom fold these towels.

My Aunt with dementia used reading as a defense mechanism.
In her case she truly couldn't see to read, but she wanted me to think that she was fine.
It was kinda comical watching her with her magnifier and an upside down paper. And it was quiet!
Maybe it's Grandma's way of trying to prove she's ok? Ultimately there is no rhyme or reason for much of what they do.
You're so right, it's heartbreaking to watch them go through this.
Hang in there and God bless!

When we went anywhere in the car Mom read the signs along the way.

This is just a guess - since she can't follow the story any more she might be looking for ways to make sense of it and instinctively reads and rereads hoping those words might decipher something?
Maybe you could stick a post it note over the logo so you can watch in peace. For fun maybe you could turn on the closed captions and let her go for it...

Because my mother has MCI with short term memory impacts, we have used "notes" and labeling to compensate for her memory deficits for several years. There are printouts on the wall in Mom's room with our address, a reminder to use her cell phone to call me if I'm out of the house, and how to use the cell phone, etc. When Mom goes into a new environment, I write a note stating where she is, why she's there and when I will be picking her up. (Mom, you're staying with your sister M for 2 days while I'm in Nashville. I will pick you up about 6:00p on Friday.) Mom will read those notes repeatedly during my absence.

Mom started having some occasional mild dementia behaviors in the last year and now she sometimes reads those wall printouts out loud every now and again.