Has anybody here had experience caring for a bilingual person with AD? I'm curious to know if there are cases where a person does NOT revert to their primary language. My grandmother Laurette has been thoroughly bilingual for about 55 years and it has helped to keep her verbal and communicative longer than many AD patients. The diagnosis was in 2000 and she can still sit and chat happily with people, sometimes barely revealing her condition if they don't know the stories she repeats all the time.

Her english is slipping a little bit, though, as I would expect. Her french is slipping too, but much more slowly. Do any of you know of a case where a person retained two languages throughout the disease process? Since she is so deeply bilingual I think it might be possible.

Hay Jezza,

You bring up a good point regarding language skills. It would be an interesting area to study/observe as out LO progress.

My Dad was raised by his German grandmother until age 7. He slips into German/Yiddish(?) conversations now. I put the '?' in because some of the words are neither German or Yiddish - at least as far as I can tell.

He kept twirling tissue in his nose and saying, I'm kaziteling!

Amazing.

Take Care
Eileen

My mother knew some Italian. Both her parents spoke only that when she was younger. Of course as the years went on, she spoke less and less except with her MIL, and then the dialect was different, so it wasn't much.

Every once in awhile she'll try to say an Italian word, but ususally has to ask my husband (he's fluent in Italian) what it means. So she'll remember the word, but not what it means. Strange huh?

Jackie

My grandfather was a minister. He spoke seven languages and spoke them during his sermons, his dominate one being English and second being German. Up to the end, he spoke German fluently and never missed a beat, although he faltered in his English. He and my father were possibly the the most intelligent men I ever knew, both in life and in academics.

My mother spoke bits and pieces of German and began to use more German as her AD progressed. I never really thought about any of this before you mentioned it, Jezza. I'm glad you brought it up.