We are caregivers for my husband's brother Ken, who is 68 and in advanced stages of FTD and PPA. The aphasia is definitively the hardest part!! He doesn't know many words at all anymore - whether he's trying to say something or he's trying to understand what we're saying. So trying to guess at a word isn't always an option for us. We have used pictures with some success. Sometimes I'll find icons on the web and create a "sentence" using pictures when we're trying to communicate something to Ken (I don't draw well). When Ken is trying to tell us something we've learned to understand new meanings of his word. For example he uses the phrase "wiped out" to mean someone left or something isn't working.

I'd read that physical touch is really important to people with dementia because they still understand it. So we hug Ken a lot, and often just visit with him in silence - maybe watching a movie - to show him we love him and care about him. We help him a lot with his electronics because he also finds them too confusing now.

Hugs to you! We definitively know how hard this is!!