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My husband has aphasia which is caused by his Alzheimer's. He has a difficult time to string words together to produce a sentence. But in his sleep, he talks in complete sentences. Has anyone experienced this?

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Moms speech therapist told me that the "disconnect" isn't in the language center ... it is in assembly.

So, while Mom could not make words come out right (assemble the right sounds in the right order) when she would sing..those words were fine. Different part of the brain pulling the words together. Tapping out the beat of the syllables also worked.

So, sleeping might just be the same sort of thing. Different part of the brain doing the processing.
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My Father talks complete sentences at night, too. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you stayed up really late with him and see if he can speak in whole sentences. Don't understand why, but around 10 pm to 2 am, my Father's thoughts and speech were clear. He could communicate so much better at those times that we actually changed our whole schedule so he could stay up late and talk with us. It was a blessing. Let me know if he can talk later at night--I am curious and hope this helps.
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And yes my husband sang the ABC song with aphasia. It was way later that he just spoke each individual letter. He sang it a lot first.
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Hi WorriedSpouse,

Not everyone accepts alternative medicine as treatment, and I don't know where you stand with that, but you may wish to consider the benefits of Lion's Mane mushroom. The younger a person is, most likely the better results one would see.

However, even at 93 year of age, my mother-in-law with severe Dementia demonstrated improvements with finding the right words. She has since passed on, but we were very pleased with how she improved with putting words together after she had been on Lion's Mane. The formula we purchased is Paul Staments' brand. You can do a Google search to find it and purchase it from your local health food store, or from online.

Lions Mane helps brain synapses - (copied from Google search): "Lion's Mane Enhances Learning & Memory. Our brain is like a mesh of neurons… To summarize, Lion's Mane improves the growth rate of new nerve cells, the development of axon and dendrite connections (synapses) between neurons, and survival of neurons."

This is how it helped my mother-in-law. Before we gave her Lion's Mane: When she was at a loss for the right descriptive word she would point and say, "That thing!" which made it difficult to know what she was talking about. After she had been on Lion's Mane for about a month or so her description of 'that thing' began to be replaced with the proper word such as, 'fence', 'shrub' or whatever it was that she was pointing to and speaking about. So it really did help.

She also demonstrated an improvement on some short term memory issues. For example, she couldn't figure out how to put on a new roll of toilet paper, so when she ran out she often took the roller off and then would set it somewhere. Lol - we often had to search for the darn thing to put a new roll of toilet paper on for her. One morning I noticed it wasn't anywhere in the bathroom. I checked inside all of the bathroom cabinet drawers etc., and it was nowhere. I then asked her, "Do you remember what you may have done with the toilet paper roller?" To my total amazement, she walked around the corner into her bedroom and immediately returned with the roller! She actually remembered what she had done with it!

Good luck on your journey! I hope your husband improves.


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My DH was in a fire and had a stroke. They put him in a coma for a month. When he woke up they said he had aphasia. They had me to to the library and get children's books with pictures. I used an ABC book for a week. Finally he said circle on a picture of a ferriswheel. Then he said ball. Then Ferris wheel. The weird thing was he counted prime numbers in his sleep just fine. 1, 3, 5...The doctors sent his M.R.I.'s away to be looked at by the big boys somewhere. He had speech therapy too for a long time. This was 10 years ago and he is recovered and working like normal. The brain can do some fascinating stuff. They said even though 1 side usually controls certain things, the brain can adjust in certain circumstances to take up the slack from another part. Just sort of 're-wire itself. He also said the alphabet in his sleep but not when he was awake. He said it when awake about 3 weeks later in the right order. This is terribly frustrating to the person it happens to. 
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I watched an interesting program once (I wish I could remember what it was) highlighting using the different pathways in the brain in therapy. I remember that some people who could not speak or string a coherent sentence together could often sing entire songs because singing uses a different area of the brain than speaking does. It seems possible that the subconscious part of the brain accessed in sleep would be different from the broken part used by the person when awake. Fascinating stuff.
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My mother cant put a sentence together any more, non sense words at best, but when shes mad shes very clear.
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My mother cant put a sentence together any more, non sense words at best, but when shes mad shes very clear.
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DW was introduced to reading therapy and it was directed toward common phrases and words of "need", like food bathroom and other words and phrases to help with her care. I did not intend to imply reading things like books or news papers. Sorry.
I was also encouraged to use some of the childrens video type games that teach reading skills to children. I haven't dome that yet. I need to check with the library to see if there are any available there.
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Good point about reading - how much is understood?
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I have not dealt with the talking in her sleep but in other situations. She can repeat a sentence that she hears but could not form that same on her own.
It is the same with reading a sign. She can read it just fine but cannot tell me what it means.
I have been told that this and other forms of oral communications is pretty normal.
Speech therapy may, in some cases, help a little.
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