My grandfather has been showing symptoms and signs for a couple months now. His new symptom is now excessive talking. Mainly about that past but it’s over and over again. He’ll tell the same story’s, every day, for about a hour and half.
You cant go to the bathroom or get water without a 15-40 minute conversation taking place. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the previous conversation. He just starts a new one
It also doesn’t matter the time. I’ve woken up in the early morning hours to use the bathroom and he saw and proceeded to go on about whatever, it was 4:30 am. I now sneak if he’s awake early so he doesn’t talk. It’s so exhausting.
It’s not something that happened with my Mum - more the other way, less talkative. But I’ve certainly heard of it as a symptom in some people. That said, my mother in law had a long spell of repetitive conversation (more like a monologue) due to mental health issues back in the 70s and early 80s, so while it may well be as you believe, there’s no way to tell without a good look at everything that’s going on.
Excessive talking can develop through many different issues not just dementia. Has the been a change in medication a recent bereavement significate event etc.
Try and keep a diary for a week and see what the triggers are. There already seems to be a pattern but when talking to a G.P. you can provide concrete evidence.
Many elderly people repeat themselves it maybe a stories they know well. And feel safe within that to get people to communicate with them. It maybe a stories they might feel it will be forgotten so keep repeating.
You could try a timer and/or record the stories. But grandfather would need to know you are recording him.
The early signs of dementia are very subtle and vague and may not be immediately obvious.
Although the early signs of dementia vary, there are some common early symptoms.
If the person affected has several of the ten warning signs of dementia, consult a doctor for a complete assessment.
Your doctor may use six broad types of medical assessment to help to confirm or rule out a diagnosis of dementia.
Some people might resist going to the doctor for a medical assessment but there several strategies that can help to make this process easier.
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My aunt, who was 95 by the time she died in 2020, had repeated herself and told the same stories over and over again for several years before her death, but had shown no signs of confusion or dementia until the last few months of her life. We put it down to the fact that she lived alone (she never married or had children), her brother and all her friends had predeceased her and she saw nobody apart from a handful of family members and a couple of neighbours. Other neighbours did try to call on her but she rebuffed them as she thought they were just being nosy and she didn’t want them “knowing all her business”. She would not entertain the thought of carers or a home help coming in although she would have benefited from that for the last few years. She had not left her house for around 7 years by the time she died as she was too self conscious to use a walking stick or walking frame in public, very unwise as she could never get any fresh air or gentle exercise.
So, as she saw very few people and never went out, she literally had nothing new to talk about. I live abroad and went to stay with her for a few days twice a year (I would have been more comfortable staying in a hotel than her dilapidated and increasingly dirty house but she liked to have the company) and by the second day I was ready to scream as I’d already heard all the same conversations we’d had during my last visit, several times by then. The worst was when I stayed with her for two weeks after she’d had a cataract removed, I thought I would go mad. But just had to keep nodding and smiling with the odd interjection. My brother, sister and I all found it difficult to divert her from this conversational groove by telling her things about our own life as she seemed to become very self-absorbed and would barely seem to register even quite serious things we told her about our lives (such as when I had to have open heart surgery and the next time I saw her she didn’t even ask how I was or how it had gone).
I fear many older people’s lives become very narrow, either because of ill health or social isolation, so they have so little to talk about.
This is called “logorrhea.” It can have a lot of mental problems, like trauma and anxiety, and early-stage dementia is one of them. So, some people with dementia show logorrhea, but it doesn’t mean that they have dementia if they show logorrhea and excessive talking is not the only sign of dementia. The loss of self-awareness is a sign that the disease is getting worse early on. It is also something that changes as the disease gets worse, so it should be cured early.
It’s not about talking a lot or not, it’s about a sudden change in behavior.
I’ve always been very reticent and if I started talking a lot it would be alarming. My sister, on the other hand, hasn’t stopped flapping her jaw since she learned her first word. If she went silent, that would be alarming.