As a staff member, volunteer, friend, and family member, I’ve spent a lot of time in seniors’ care homes. I like being there, but it is a challenging environment. Of all the struggles people who need to go into this kind of care have, the worst may be dementia. In the homes I’ve visited and worked in, I’ve never seen anyone treat a dementia patient unkindly, but I have noticed a few well-meant sorts of comments that backfire and cause them anxiety. Inspired by my sister-in-law’s recent blogpost on how to talk to deaf people (yes, go read it), here are a few tips on how to talk to people with moderate dementia.

Laugh and have fun, but don’t make jokes that rely on sarcasm or any other kind of communication not meant in an absolutely literal sense. It’s confusing and not worth it. The aides at my family member’s care home have a running joke about getting in and out of the residents’ suites through secret passages. Cute, until residents ask their families to bring in crow bars so they can tear up the carpet and find the passageway.

Don’t admire their possessions too enthusiastically, even if it’s only to make conversation or be polite. Dementia can frame compliments as conspiracies. The patient may initially seem pleased but the more they dwell on the compliment, the more they may begin to suspect someone might be out to take their nice things for themselves. This gets complicated, especially if they hide treasured objects in safe places, forget they’ve done it, and then the stuff may as well have been stolen.

On the other hand, they may be so pleased with a compliment that they offer to give away an object someone has admired. These offers must be refused. Most care homes have policies against staff accepting residents’ possessions as gifts and with good reason. As another one of my sisters-in-law says, people with dementia remember concrete things better than they remember abstract conversations. They may forget that they offered something and be distressed when they find it’s missing and can’t remember how they came to part with it. So leave everything where it is. Don’t even borrow anything. Leave it.

Wait rather than finishing their sentences. Conversation is hard when familiar words just won’t come. Speaking a first language becomes more like speaking a second language, where if everything would slow down a little, the dementia patient would do much better. Be clear and slow and specific. Pause even if it means sitting through silences, waiting. While waiting for the patient to find the words, don’t say much more than a few words of encouragement, like, “Take your time. It’s okay.”

Stay positive. This sounds outrageously trite but being in the moderate stages of dementia, when patients understand their minds are slipping but can’t do anything to stop it, is depressing for everyone especially the patient. This depression feeds off the frustration and grief of other people. When the patient is in a good mood–even if it’s a bit wacky, even if we’re not in a good mood ourselves–go with it. Be delighted in their happiness and relieved their clouds have lifted. Sometimes, they even want to laugh about the strange things they’ve said or done. Keeping laughing with them. Laughing together makes things feel normal again.

But we won’t always be able to stay positive. If we felt no pain or grief at the changes in our loved ones, we’d be less human. None of us has perfect control of powerful feelings like these and forgiving ourselves for our lapses is part of the lifestyle of someone helping in the care of a dementia patient.

Don’t expect too much late at night. Energy ebbs and flows during the day. By afternoon nap time and late in the evening, it’s spent. Being exhausted makes it impossible to maintain the peak presence of mind a dementia patient may be able to muster in morning and at dinnertime. Personally, as much as possible, I insist on morning time slots for my loved one’s appointments so she can be at her best.

Listen to their concerns. Their concerns might be unfounded in reality [see the secret passageway]. They might be more like obsessions, repeated over and over again. Listen anyway. Only force questions on them if the false concerns seem to be upsetting them or could start rumors that pose a threat to other people. When questioning, try not to argue. Act like a careful, well-mannered lawyer leading a witness to give evidence. Provide their story with a map of reality to fit into, then stand back  a little as they find their own way to make it fit.

A friend contacted me after I wrote this to share her experiences dealing with a loved one with dementia who kept asking after family members who had died, expecting them to still be around. To avoid devastating patients with the “news” of deaths, my friend recommends just redirecting them with, “They’ll be here later.” If you’re a spiritual person, it’s true, in its way.

In cases where concerns deal with what patients might have done to bring dementia on themselves, assure them it’s not their fault. Diseases like alcoholism and syphilis are indeed connected to both patient lifestyles and dementia. But most dementia patients don’t have those kinds of risk factors. Unfortunately, well-meaning tips for younger people about avoiding dementia–stuff about reading, learning a second language, doing Sudoku–have been taken by some very dim and silly people who don’t understand the difference between correlation and causation to mean that dementia patients must have been mentally inactive and lazy during their younger years, and that people who don’t get dementia are better people than those who do. This is not at all true. It’s offensive and shameful when people without dementia say it, and heartbreaking when people with dementia say it. Let’s all agree to never say it again.