@cliffaddison Hi Cliff! First of all let me say that you and Pat are in my thoughts and prayers. Your story sounds a bit like mine and my husband's with the symptoms she is experiencing. My Tom (64) and I (61) were given his diagnosis of dementia in 2021 (pin-pointed it was Lewy Body in 2024) and I lost him in February. I know everybody's timeline thru this journey is different, but never in a million years did I think I would lose him THAT quick 🙁 His cognitive decline advanced quicker than I thought it would. His aphasia hit us pretty hard. We too went to a speech therapist but it didn't seem to help him much because of his progressive cognitive disability and his confusion, memory loss, and everything else that goes along with this horrible disease. When he was still verbal, he would get his words mixed up or couldn't remember what things were called so we had to give things "new" names. He couldn't remember what a remote control was but he knew what it meant when I would say the "channel changer" and he'd hand me the remote 🙂 When he started getting more non verbal we did a lot of pointing to things and gestures. That was much easier for him because then he wouldn't have to struggle so much to find the words. During that time, he was really struggling to find the words he wanted to say and they were getting all jumbled...sentences didn't make sense..some of the words weren't even words and needless to say, i would struggle to try to understand. So I had to look him right in the face and strain to hear what he was trying to say and at times I still couldn't understand, so then I had to start asking yes and no questions and that worked out so much better. As you could probably imagine there wasn't too many conversations with all this, so i would talk about stuff and he would just listen and we'd laugh. No heavy conversations by any means and somehow we made it thru this part of the journey. As for replacing past activities (or ANY activity) that was a hard one for us. He didn't really have any hobbies. He couldn't drive or cook anymore (which he loved to do). I would get him kindergarten toys or books and that would keep his interest for a short while but when he started to forget how to play or struggled how to read, he was done and I'd have to find something else. It seemed like he didn't want to participate much in anything anymore because of the rapid memory loss so i ended getting him lighted fidgets and he loved them. !!! The multi colors and the spinning noise...oh yah! Things that were simple is what made him happy. We would watch more Animal Planet...very child like things interested him more. I love gardening, him not so much, but he would join me out in the sunshine and let me do my thing while he had his fidget and the radio to keep him occupied. And he was always going thru his stuff. And making sure I knew it was his stuff, especially if I tried to move it or put it somewhere else. So I ended giving him a couple areas that were all his. A drawer with alot of little things for him to "fidget' with. As long as he couldn't hurt himself or me. I would also have him help me with folding laundry...but he always just did his, never mine lol but it didnt' matter because I was just happy he was doing SOMETHING. Like I said earlier, everyone's journey is different and I know you will find your way. And I hope you will find advice and suggestions here to help you.
Strenth, Peace, Love and Hugs