Losing language

In Alzheimer's, the mind dies first:

Names, dates, places-the interior scrapbook of an entire life-

fade into mists of nonrecognition.

Matt Clark

Both temporal lobes of my father's brain are showing the impact of Alzheimer's.

He is forgetting us, his children, slowly but surely. He may know who we are at any given moment, but in the next instant that knowledge is gone. He can be sitting with me, looking at an old family picture, and not know that he is looking at a photograph of me. A large portion of the time he can still identify us as siblings, or as his children, even if he can not put a name to a face. Other times he is as clear as a bell. Sadly, the clear times are becoming few and far between. Last night he confused me with my mother. It was heartbreaking for me to hear.

His ability to retain information is very limited now. He repeats questions endlessly. It is virtually impossible for him to learn anything new; he is having great difficulty hanging on to what he has known in the past. Every day brings a new and noticable cognitive deficiet.

How much longer will he be able to hang on? Do I even want to know?