Dear Sexymo50,

Any Opioid medication can affect the CNS, Central Nervous System. 

Elderly patients do react differently to these medications.  When you say, "UNABLE to communicate", are you saying the person can no longer speak?  Could you clear this part of your question? 

I will say now that any opioid used on an elderly person can affect their communication, in that the CNS is affected, such as when this type of medication causes a person to feel sleepy, confused, lethargic, etc., esp. if they have recently started this med, upped the doseage, or combined another med with it that is having an adverse reaction.  These side effects (and many more) are common with opioids. 

However, if the person begins to truly NOT be able to communicate at all, this is not a normal side-effect of Hydrocodone.  I would not attribute the loss of communiation skills to Vicodin alone---other reasons must be ruled out, along with stopping the vicodin, simply to find out what type of CNS effects it is having on this person. 

Hope this helped a bit!!

Gentle Hugs.....