How old is she?

It's Aphasia. It's really common in older people. Not always a sign of dementia, but it can be. My grandfather developed it at one point because he'd been living alone, only eating canned soup, and not interacting with others outside of routine check-ins (didn't need to converse off-script, so to speak). Once his diet was fixed, he was living with his daughter, and having to interact more with people again and maintain those skills, it improved. But like others have said, a neurologist is the best person to evaluate this and determine possible causes..

Is this new? My 85 year old mom has always done this to an extent but it's become much worse over the past couple of years. I wasn't concerned about it, assumed it was part of aging. But maybe not, now that I'm reading this.

Anonymous wrote:Aphasia

+1

Neurologist. Can be early Alzheimer’s.

Aphasia

Anonymous wrote:No a cardiologist wouldn’t be an expert in speech issues. Get her to a neurologist.

This. That way they can also get a baseline of where she is now in case there's further decline.

This is likely related to something happening in her brain. Mild stroke possibly, or mild/early dementia, I forget what it’s called but small areas of bleeding in the brain as well. My father developed this same speech pattern. He is in his 90’s and he has all of the things I’ve mentioned. A neurologist is likely your best bet for a diagnosis or her primary care doctor will likely be able to identify the cause. There isn’t really anything they can do about it.

No a cardiologist wouldn’t be an expert in speech issues. Get her to a neurologist.

Anonymous wrote:They wouldn't necessary pick up something like a minor stroke during a regular workup. Did anyone bring up your mom's speech to the doctor?

No. I mentioned it to her, and she said she isn’t worried about it and doesn’t want it checked out. I think she’s scared.

They wouldn't necessary pick up something like a minor stroke during a regular workup. Did anyone bring up your mom's speech to the doctor?

I’d say within the past six months, my mother has had an increasingly noticeable odd speech issue. It’s not a stutter or stammer, but it sort of is? It’s almost like her thoughts are moving faster than her mouth. It’s sort of like:

“And then we went to the grocery store for, we went for, we got a… ap… we got apples, and then, ah, and then we came home.”

She very recently had a full work up, including visiting her cardiologist. We’ve theorized she could be in very early dementia due to her sedentary lifestyle, but she has high blood pressure and a-fib and I worry this could have been a stroke? But wouldn’t her doctor or cardiologist have seen this? She refuses to have it checked out.