A common difficulty reported in dementia is the feeling that words are just out of your reach – you know what you want to say but you just can’t find the right word. Here Gina is stretching and jumping to capture the words as they fly around her.
"Not being able to find the words is very frustrating. It’s disconcerting because you know what you want to say but you can’t think of how to say it.
You start to think of the first letter and try to speak it out in your head. The worst thing anybody can do is say it for you and they do fire words at you to see if one of them fits. (laughter)
Because if they say it for you, then you’ve lost it. You probably won’t even try to use it again because it can be embarrassing. I can imagine some people becoming more introverted. And once you stop using your vocabulary, you will lose it. If you don’t keep doing things, you’ll stop being able to do them."