{"id":522773,"date":"2026-04-10T05:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522773\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T05:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:18:10","slug":"language-changes-normal-ageing-or-a-dementia-red-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522773\/","title":{"rendered":"Language Changes: Normal Ageing Or A Dementia Red Flag?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comment provided by cognitive neuroscientist Dr Adolfo M Garc\u00eda<\/a>, Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Atlantic Fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute, and Associate Researcher at Universidad de Santiago de Chile. He is also the creator of the speech testing app TELL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, dementia changes how people speak. Because it can affect<\/a> the part of the brain responsible for language, it may mean those with the condition struggle to finish a sentence, replace an intended word with another one, or jumble up their words.<\/p>\n

But writing in Nature recently<\/a>, cognitive neuroscientist Dr Adolfo M Garc\u00eda said that while some language changes are normal in \u201chealthy\u201d ageing, others might signal dementia risk before it is clinically recognised.<\/p>\n

Speaking to HuffPost UK, he said that Alzheimer-specific changes \u201cmay begin several years before core dementia symptoms appear.\u201d <\/p>\n

How can you tell \u201cnormal\u201d age-related language changes from dementia-related ones? <\/p>\n

Noticing changes to your speech as you age doesn\u2019t necessarily mean something is wrong. <\/p>\n

\u201cCompared with younger adults, healthy older adults may speak more slowly, take longer to find the right word, or lose their train of thought occasionally. Conversations can become a little less clear or detailed,\u201d Dr Garc\u00eda told us.<\/p>\n

In fact, among those ageing healthily, many can expect improvements in some parts of their language.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir overall knowledge of words often grows, thanks to a lifetime of experience, so they may actually have a richer vocabulary than younger people.\u201d<\/p>\n

That idea is echoed in a theory called Heap\u2019s law, \u201cwhich posits that crystallised intelligence (knowledge accumulation) remains stable or improves in older adults\u201d.<\/p>\n

But, the neuroscientist added, \u201cDementia looks different. The key issue is not just slowing down \u2015 it is losing words and meanings. People may struggle to name everyday objects, use vaguer or incorrect words, or mix up meanings (for example, calling a \u2018chair\u2019 a \u2018table\u2019). Their speech can become less coherent and harder to follow.<\/p>\n

He added that while \u201cnormal ageing\u201d can lead to \u201cdelayed processing with preserved or increased knowledge,\u201d dementia \u201caffects what we actually know and can express.<\/p>\n

\u201cVocabulary knowledge is the most clearly distinct domain between healthy ageing and Alzheimer\u2019s, as it increases in the former and is markedly reduced in the latter.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dr Garc\u00eda hopes this will lead to better early dementia diagnosis <\/p>\n

At the moment, there is no single test for dementia<\/a>. And many cases are diagnosed years after the first symptoms begin (an average of 3.5 years<\/a>, per one study). <\/p>\n

Dr Garc\u00eda told us that \u201cchanges in word processing and other language domains may begin several years before core dementia symptoms appear. This is a vital discovery, as the chances of effective intervention increase drastically when people at risk are detected early on (that is, when neurodegeneration has begun but clinical manifestations are not yet visible).\u201d <\/p>\n

He hopes that advanced language analysis software can raise those key flags sooner. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence keeps growing, research funds multiply, and user-friendly apps are becoming more available (like our very own TELL app<\/a>). The core challenge, moving forward, is how to accelerate widespread adoption from clinicians and other stakeholders, so that these technologies can be globally harnessed for equitable dementia screening, diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comment provided by cognitive neuroscientist Dr Adolfo M Garc\u00eda, Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Atlantic Fellow at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5079,854,402,59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-522773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-ageing","9":"tag-dementia","10":"tag-evergreen","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}