‘Your sandwich is on the sofa’.  Just this morning, I managed to confuse my son with thinking that I had put part of his packed lunch in the most random of places, when all I meant to say was ‘table’.  I have noticed word-finding problems happening more and more frequently, which can be quite alarming, especially for a speech and language therapist!  Luckily, it doesn’t happen that often whilst at work, perhaps because I am usually focusing on strategies to support children with their own ability to find words but, at home, when brain-fog is at its most persistent, the ability to ‘find the right word’ is definitely reduced.

Word-finding Difficulties and Chronic Illness

I have Multiple Sclerosis, which is sometimes described as a ‘snowflake disease’.  This means that not everyone who has the diagnosis has the same symptoms as each other; they are varied and numerous.  However, problems with memory, concentration, problem-solving and multi-tasking are all common complaints for those who have, not only MS, but other chronic illness(es).  This may be known as ‘cog-fog’ or ‘brain-fog, or cognitive difficulties. Fatigue, which is often a common factor in chronic illness(es) may exacerbate symptoms such as the ability to find the right word and to think clearly.

Those that have word-finding difficulties may:

  • Feel as though the right word is ‘on the tip of their tongue’, they just can’t quite reach it
  • Make errors, such as replacing the target word with one that sounds similar (e.g. ‘parrot’ for carrot’) or one that is related in some way (e.g. ‘sofa’ for ‘table’)
  • ‘Talk around the word’, describing it rather than using the target e.g. ‘those things that you cut with’, rather than ‘scissors’
  • Use a lot of ‘unspecific language’, making it difficult to get their message across e.g. ‘I saw that thing under there‘ instead of ‘I saw the pen under the chair‘.
  • Pepper their speech with ‘ummm’, ‘err’, ‘you know’
  • Find it difficult to engage in conversation, due to the amount of time it can take to contribute to the discussion
  • Feel frustrated and annoyed with themselves for not being able to ‘get the right word’ and may feel embarrassed by others noticing
  • Find it impacts on family and relationships, as both they, and their significant others, find it frustrating

It can be a scary prospect to suddenly not be able to find the right label for those everyday words that used to come so easily.  I find that I am more likely to experience word-finding difficulties if I am tired, rushing or I am put on the spot to answer.

Picture of a black lady with her hands up to her chin. She looks like she's thinking of something. She's wearing a grey T-shirt and a headscarf covering the back of her head. Trippingthroughtreacle.com is written at the bottom right of the picture

How Can I Help Myself?

  • Picturing the object in your mind (having a visual clue), or gesturing what you might do with it may help you to find the word
  • Give yourself some ‘clues’ about the item e.g. ‘I eat it, it is a fruit, it is round and red… it is an apple’.  This helps to build the picture around the word, which can support word retrieval over time
  • Put time aside to carry out activities that can help to boost your word retrieval skills:
  1. Name as many items in a category as you can in 30 seconds e.g. animals/furniture/vegetables/things that are round/things you might see at work etc
  2. Look at items/pictures and describe them:  What does it look like? What does it feel like?  What does it smell like?  What do we do with it?  Where would we find it?  What does it sound like? (Building up word meaning/semantics)
  3. Some word-finding difficulties can be the result of not being able to find the right sounds for the word.  As above, look at some items or pictures and ask yourself the following (let’s take the word ‘bike’): What sound does it start with?  ‘b’.  What sound does it end with? ‘k’ (rather than ‘e’, as that is the letter rather than sound, and is silent).  How many syllables does it have? Tap it out on the table – 1 beat, so 1 syllable.  What does it rhyme with? Hike, Mike, dyke, like, spike, tyke.  This builds up phonological awareness.
  • There are apps, created by Speech and Language Therapists, that help to support word-finding.  This one, by Tactus Therapy, guides you to work on thinking of the right words, organising your ideas, improving your efficiency, and speaking clearly.  It is available for iPhone
  • Play word games!  I play ‘4 pictures, 1 word’ on my phone and scrabble a lot

How Can Others Help?

By:

  • Asking yes/no questions rather than open-ended questions e.g. would you like to go to the cinema?’ rather than ‘what would you like to do today?’
  • Offering choices e.g. ‘would you prefer pasta or burgers for tea?’ rather than ‘what would you like to eat?’
  • Encouraging you to talk about and describe the item
  • Giving you time to formulate your answers
  • Being patient and understanding

***

Word-finding difficulties can be a frustrating part of any illness but, hopefully, the above strategies can help you to feel as though you are actively engaging in activities to help yourself.  They will also strengthen those connections in your brain to help you retrieve the words more easily.  Let me know how you get on – and I’ll do the same!

Love and light

38 Comments

  1. Thank your for sharing your tips! I have found that I have become quite good at charades in the last few years and I frequently talk with my hands. Making eye contact and only doing one activity (if I can) has also helped

      1. I’m curious, if you don’t mind…do you find that you are “hyper sensitive” to sounds also. I think what I am trying to say, is I get information overload if the tv is on in the background while I am trying to talk…things like that

  2. Great advice, as ever, Jenny! This definitely applies to me. If I make an ‘official’ phone call I have to make notes before I ring with the important details I have to remember to mention. I also have to have my address, postcode, DOB, phone number etc to hand as although I know them my mind will often go blank when I’m asked!!! This morning I had to ring the dentist twice, once to change my appointment and a second time to change my son’s as it had completely slipped my mind that I needed to mention his needed changing too! I forget specific words as well but more often big chunks of information. The joys of MS!

  3. Yes, yes, yes. Someone will look at me funny, and I’ll say what did I say? And then I’ll be so frustrated because it come out wrong! I grew up in a performance oriented family, so this one is really hard for me. Thank you, Jen, for this post. You explained it so well! I am going to link it in my Monday Musings blog post tonight!

  4. I’m guilty of all the above. Especially switching a similar sounding word like your example of parrot and carrot or a word that just begins with the same letter. I also do a lot of describing and unfortunately people get tired of waiting for me to spit it out and usually walk away or change the subject. It’s so frustrating at times because I wish they could understand how hard it is and just give me a little time. Great post and advice.

  5. Excellent post. ME does the same thing to my mind. I used to be a Special Education teacher, so I can really relate to my students now. Another thing that I find is that I can do two out of three steps, but not three. Following a recipe is difficult, but with some ingenuity, I’m getting there.

    1. I think it’s the cog fog that does it I think that loads of people with chronic illness suffer from it. I find that I have to keep going back to things that I’ve read at times, to help me follow the written word.

  6. Some great tips & suggestions Jen. I know it’s different, but with the brain fog I get with ME, I really struggle finding the right words sometimes. I will also say the wrong word when I mean to say something else. My son keeps saying “you said the wrong thing, Mummy” which he finds very funny! That’s three year olds! Great post 😊

  7. This is one of the strange symptoms I have been having, along with a huge list of otehrs. Unfortunately, I still do not have a diangosis. Until then, I will nlame my braing fog on gthe stress my four kids put me under 🙂 They all anser to each others’ names anyway!

  8. My daughter finds it funny when I forget. My mom has been forgetting words since I was a kid. I never blamed MS on this, age seemed more the nemesis.

  9. Yes/no questions are great for me to be asked, and I LOVE it if I ask a yes/no question and the person answers yes or no, instead of a whole blahblah backstory that goes on forever and just gives me more junk to process needlessly.

    In our (vegetarian) household, we call everything ‘chicken’, just because it makes it easier and because with TBI and epilepsy from getting electrocuted, my brain is often toast. So whatever the question, the answer may involve chicken, simply because it is restful to have that as a default. Otherwise, I can say, “I put that thing in the place and because you know”, and my husband is really good at figuring out that it means something like ‘The food is ready. Do you want some?’ Brains are so interesting. And yes, this may sound crazy, but it actually works in our house!

  10. Thanks for the information and tips! Brain fog is one of my biggest and least favorite symptom of MS. I will try some of these tips out and pass this post along to others.

  11. Although this frustrates me to no end and upsets me deeply as a lover of language, it’s also been a great source of laughter. I’ve been collecting a list of the funniest times I’ve inserted the wrong word. My favorite is when I asked my then 5yo niece if she had taken my muffins. “They were right here on the floor. I think I saw you wearing them earlier. Do you know where they are?” At her look of bafflement at what I was talking about, I just kept saying, “my muffins!” The real word was slippers! A bizarre word conflation but one that my family still laughs about years later.

  12. I went through a similar “word finding” problem many yrs ago, when working for a large company. Thankfully, it mostly happened in front of my secretary and we could have a laugh about it. My work was stressful and words were/are extremely important in carrying out my job. However, since leaving the company, setting up my own company and continuing to do the same type of work, I have found that this difficulty has diminished greatly – my conclusion – stress definitely doesn’t help!

  13. […] Shower benches, crutches, rollators, mobility scooters, wheelchairs, automatic rather than manual cars… all help me to be as independent as possible at a time when my body is saying “No! I can’t do this”.  Sudoku, Boggle, scrabble – the word games on my phone help me to work on my word-finding problems and perhaps it is time for me to take my own advice and follow more of the activities and strategies that I laid out in my post about word-finding? […]

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