Multiple language speaker

[fantastcfox]

Hi. I was just curious when people have Dementia and Alzheimer's and they speak a few languages do they remember them all?

[CadyEastman]

No experience of Alzheimer's but DMIL spike one language but began losing some words fairly early on. I suppose it would depend on when they learned the languages?

[Froniga]

Hi
My late father had Dementia and spoke both German and French fluently when younger, as well as English. Once I visited him in the nursing home and he spoke to me in German. I don’t speak any other language only English. I said, “Dad I’m sorry i didn’t understand that, I don’t speak German”. He then, I believe, repeated it in French. I told him I didn’t understand that either as I only speak English. He gave me a withering look and said, “hmm you’re not very intelligent are you.” I still laugh over this.
He was a great Dad and a very intelligent man. And he loved me very much but I was never much good at languages. He had severe Lewy Body dementia but occasionally seemed very lucid.

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

From all I’ve ever read or heard, people with Alzheimer’s will eventually forget all but their mother tongue - old memories are the last to go. In the same way, many people will forget any homes they’ve lived in, except their childhood home.
Other forms of dementia may well be different.

[SpringOfContentment]

We now have a family member who has reverted purely to her local dialect, and will no longer communicate in the majority language of the country or her third language (although I'm not surprised by this one going).
Her kids are the only ones who can really communicate now. Inlaws and younger generations don't have the local dialect ability, and now the communal language doesn't work, it's getting tough.

[Kucinghitam]

My dad has two primary languages and also spoke a couple of others fluently. (He lives in a country where everyone speaks multiple languages). What I've noticed, 4 years since diagnosis, is that he no longer speaks his secondary languages much (or at all), although he seems happy to sit and watch TV in those languages, and presumably he understands what is going on.

With his primary languages, he's losing one more than the other. Rarely speaks it, and when he does it is quite limited in subject matter - he sticks to common phrases and everyday chitchat. If you weren't close to him, you'd get the impression he was still speaking fluently.

He now shows a strong preference for the other main language, his loss of use here is more "conventional" from what I read on here - long pauses struggling to remember words, then making an excuse like "Oh never mind, talk about something else" etc.

So far with all his languages, if somebody says a standard greeting or a easy question or jokey statement, he can still respond in the relevant language with an appropriately light formulaic way. E.g. "Have you eaten?" "How have you been?" "Hot today, isn't it?" type of thing.

[JoeMaplin]

Research shows that people often revert to their mother tongue, despite speaking other languages for many years.

[Whsthappensnow]

Yes DGM had vascular dementia when she died.

She was Welsh but bought up speaking English predominantly and was also fluent in German. Towards the end she spoke only English.

I studied languages so often talked to her in other languages and the decline was obvious to me.