Tip #1 for joyful conversations with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Don’t ask questions.

Questions make most people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia anxious and worried. Before my mother's Alzheimer’s progressed, she would try to figure out why she didn’t know the answer to a question, and she would often try to fake an answer or turn the conversation away from the question. This upset her. We learned to just state the facts and start a conversation. “Peter made a three layer chocolate cake and we ate it with ice cream.” Then my mom could join in with, “I don’t care for ice cream, but I love chocolate cake. Did you bring me a piece?” A topic my mom never tired of was Albert, our huge, slobbery Newfoundland dog. She loved anything about him. He ate her expensive cashmere sweater, he ate her favorite pair of red shoes. She still loved him. My boys could say, “Albert got into the pantry today and ate a bag of flour.” Then my mom would say, “Oh, Albert, what a dog! What a mess!” The boys knew to say anything to keep the conversation going, just no questions.

My sons always had a story they knew Granny enjoyed, like Albert the dog jumping up to put his head in a pot on the stove to see what was cooking. They could tell the same story over and over, my mom always loved it and couldn’t remember that she’d heard it before, and they always had an interesting and enjoyable conversation topic.