Why Dementia Patients Lose Vocabulary
Dementia affects the brain in ways that make it hard for people to find and use the right words. This word loss happens because certain brain areas that store word meanings and connections start to break down. Patients might know what they want to say but cannot pull the exact word from their memory.
In many cases, this starts with simple words for everyday objects. For example, someone might call a crow a bird at first, then just an animal, and later only a thing. This shows how specific knowledge fades into something more general. The brain damage often hits the front and side parts of the temporal lobes, which hold our understanding of what words mean.
Alzheimers disease, the most common type of dementia, causes plaques and tangles in the brain. These build up and cut connections between nerve cells. Areas for short-term memory go first, but soon language skills suffer too. People forget basic words or pick wrong ones, which makes talking confusing for everyone.
Semantic dementia is a rarer form where word loss is the main problem from the start. Here, patients lose the link between words and their meanings, especially for things you can see like animals or tools. They keep grammar skills and can understand simple sentences, but naming objects gets tough. Abstract words like hope or justice stay stronger than concrete ones like apple or car. Numbers and music knowledge often hold up better.
Frontotemporal dementia also hits language hard in some people. It changes behavior and speech, with trouble finding words or speaking fluently. Vascular dementia, from blood flow problems in the brain, can cause slurred speech or mixing up words, depending on which brain part lacks blood.
As dementia worsens, patients pause a lot while speaking, repeat words, or talk around the idea without naming it. They use more verbs and fillers instead of nouns. Reading can get tricky too, especially irregular words.
The exact reason words vanish is not fully known, but experts point to damage in the anterior temporal lobe. This spot acts like a hub for linking sights, sounds, and meanings. When it shrinks, the whole word system fails.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_dementia
https://www.adakc.org/about-alzheimers/
https://www.alzscot.org/what-is-dementia/types-of-dementia/rarer-forms-of-dementia/
https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/dementia-information/types-of-dementia/vascular-dementia/symptoms/
https://www.bangkokhospital.com/en/chiangmai/content/dementia-bcm
https://www.duxburyhouse.com/blog/20-things-not-to-say-to-someone-with-dementia/
https://www.dignityhealth.org/conditions-and-treatments/neurology/dementia
