Technologies

How to Talk to a Loved One Who Has Dementia: Never Say ‘No’

Holiday gatherings can mean communicating with relatives who have memory loss. An expert offers her best tips.

This story is part of Mysteries of the Brain, CNET’s deep dive into the human brain’s infinite complexities.

I’ll never forget the last real conversation I had with my wonderful late mother-in-law, Grace. She’d had Alzheimer’s disease for a number of years, and making a call on her smartphone was getting tough for her. So I was surprised to see her name pop up on my screen, calling me on a random Thursday night in the fall of 2021.

«Are you watching 60 Minutes?» she asked.

I paused. I hadn’t watched the news-magazine show in decades, but I knew it aired on Sunday nights, not Thursdays. I also knew how confused Alzheimer’s had made my mother-in-law.

Before her illness, she’d always kept up with the news and had strong opinions on politics — even campaigning for John F. Kennedy when he ran for president in the 1960s. She kept her mind active well into her 80s by doing the daily crossword puzzle in her favorite newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, and she loved to discuss new books with me.

But Alzheimer’s had robbed her of her focus, and often her words. I knew how hard that was for her, how she became frustrated to the point of tears when she couldn’t make herself understood. If she thought she was watching 60 Minutes on a night it wasn’t on, I was not about to disagree with her.

«Yes, I’m watching 60 Minutes!» I said instantly.

It was the right answer. In a happy, satisfied voice, she said, «They’re a nice couple, aren’t they?»

Couple? Who was the couple? Mike Wallace and Morley Safer? Weren’t they dead? It didn’t matter.

«Yes!» I said.

«OK, I’ll let you go now,» she said, and the call was over. Grace died about a month later, at age 85. She’d moved from her two-bedroom California condominium into a beautiful assisted-living facility just eight months earlier, barely getting a chance to enjoy its hair salon, field trips and other amenities.

Her health deteriorated quickly, and she soon needed 24-hour care. We moved her from the hospital to a board-and-care home run by a compassionate Russian doctor, and she lived there for just one week before passing away.

Every day, I’m thankful I agreed with her during that phone call. In her world, she was watching a «nice couple» on 60 Minutes on a Thursday night, and I knew enough about her dementia to try to enter the world she inhabited.

‘I’ve got your back’

Diana Waugh knows just how hard it can be to speak to someone with cognitive loss, whether it’s Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia or another condition. Waugh is a veteran nurse and a certified dementia practitioner. Her business, Waugh Consulting, focuses on giving caregivers and family members the tools to communicate with loved ones suffering from dementia.

But Waugh didn’t always know how to do this. Her own mother, Iona Kiser, suffered from dementia and died in 2008 at 95.

«I did everything wrong,» Waugh says. «I was less than successful with her.»

Since then, Waugh has published a short book, I Was Thinking: Unlocking the Door to Successful Conversations with Loved Ones With Cognitive Loss. She’s spoken to countless caregivers, and produced numerous videos explaining her approach.

Waugh says she can sum up her philosophy about conversations with them in one phrase: «I’ve got your back.» She also holds strong feelings about the word «no» — saying caregivers shouldn’t use it. And she encourages caregivers to divert potentially troubling conversations to focus on old memories their loved one can easily discuss, as opposed to trying to quiz them on new information their brains just can’t access.

Her work won’t give her that time with her mom back, but she’s helped numerous other people along the way.

Sheila Qualls’ 86-year-old mother has dementia, and Qualls has been working with Waugh on how to better communicate with her mom.

«I miss my mom, but Diana taught me how to ‘access’ her,» Qualls says. «Her techniques have made a huge difference in how we respond to my mother and have changed our lives.»

Short-term-memory drawer has no bottom

Waugh explains that your loved one’s memory has two «file drawers» — short-term and long-term memory. The items in long-term memory are generally still accessible. But the file drawer that should collect short-term memories has no bottom. The memories simply can’t stay put.

«So if you ask [a person with memory loss] to go to lunch with you tomorrow, they put that in the short-term drawer [and it’s forgotten],» Waugh says. «You show up, they’re still in pajamas. A smart person says, ‘Let’s go anyway.'»

The person with dementia can’t tell you how they feel today, Waugh explains, since that involves short-term memory. But they can tell you «how it felt when they hurt their knee at age 40.»

Tap into long-term memory

That’s exactly why Waugh encourages caregivers to tap into their loved one’s long-term memory whenever possible. Her slim book has a number of workbook pages where she encourages people to write down memories they can bring up with their loved one. What did they like to taste? To listen to? To touch?

Always have three stories at the ready, Waugh tells clients, and then use them to keep the impacted loved one in the conversation. Bring up those old memories and encourage them to talk about those things.

Qualls says this tactic works.

«My mom may not remember who I am, but when I begin talking about her childhood or my childhood experiences, she can engage right away,» she says.

It can also be helpful to show photos to your loved one, but «make sure they’re old photos,» Waugh warns. A new great-great-granddaughter may be cute, but it’s unlikely a person with cognitive loss will have any idea who that baby is.

Divert and redirect

Waugh tells a story of a woman who moved her elderly father from Nashville to Houston and worried he’d want to return to his familiar barn, which was now several states away.

In such a scenario, instead of telling him no, that his beloved barn was gone, Waugh says caregivers should calmly use the barn as a jumping-off place to get the man talking.

«Say, ‘I was thinking about that one racehorse you had,» Waugh says. «And once they start [talking], let them go.»

Qualls found this method valuable as well.

«Diana also taught me how to answer questions when my mother wonders where my father is,» Qualls said. «Divert and redirect. Works like a charm. Diana taught me to enter my mom’s world instead of trying to bring her into my reality.»

Taking away the car keys

Many people first tune in to cognitive loss when they realize their loved one can no longer drive safely. But how to get them to give up the keys? You might be tempted to lie and say their car is broken.

That doesn’t work, Waugh says. If the loved one is early on in their cognitive loss, «they’ll call AAA to get that ‘broken’ car fixed.»

Instead, she suggests telling them about a scary incident you recently experienced on the roads, or claim you recently got lost while driving. These kinds of stories might hit home with someone who’s almost certainly beginning to notice problems. You might also be able to convince them a family member needs to use their car for a while, just to have an excuse for why it’s suddenly inaccessible.

Here’s what to never say

Waugh encourages caregivers to avoid one word: no.

«‘No’ doesn’t do a darn bit of good,» she says, explaining that the word only angers the loved one. If you can divert the conversation instead, the person will likely forget the diversion in five minutes and happily move on. But if you make them mad by telling them «no,» they’ll be mad for the rest of the day, she says.

Waugh understands why frustrated caregivers might be tempted to say no. Their loved one might be insisting they need to get to work when they haven’t held a job in years.

By saying «no,» the caregiver is hoping, she says, to bring the person back to reality by denying their «erroneous thinking.» But the person they love is living in their own reality, and the caregiver will need to keep saying «no» over and over again, increasing stress on the relationship.

Avoiding «no» makes sense, but Waugh also says caregivers shouldn’t say, «Do you remember?» What may seem a gentle prompt can be seen as a demanding quiz to someone losing their memory.

«It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull,» Waugh says. «The person likely does not remember whatever it is, and asking them to do so puts them under pressure they no longer know how to handle.»

What to say instead

Instead, Waugh encourages people to use a phrase from the title of her book, «I was thinking…» as a starter to encourage memories. If a loved one tells you they have to get to work, although they haven’t had a job in years, calmly say, «I was thinking…» and then launch into some detail about a job they once had.

If it suddenly occurs to them they’ve lost a loved one — even if that happened years ago, you might start off with «I was thinking…» and then relate a happy memory about that loved one’s pie-baking skills.

Successfully communicating with loved ones who have dementia can be wrenchingly hard. Waugh knows that only too well.

«We need to stop looking at [our loved ones] as we always have,» Waugh writes in her book. «When we change our expectations, we can find them as they are. We can have meaningful conversations. Our relationship, though different, will be so much more fulfilling. It will provide us with happy memories of the latter part of their lives.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Dec. 27, #460

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Dec. 27, No. 460.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a real challenge. That purple category wants you to hunt out something related in four different words, and it’s a toughie. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Something you save.

Green group hint: An Olympic sport.

Blue group hint: Toronto pitchers.

Purple group hint: Think about the alphabet and look for something hidden.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Memento.

Green group: Types of wrestling.

Blue group: Blue Jays to win Cy Young Award.

Purple group: Ends in a homophone for a letter of the alphabet.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is memento. The four answers are collectible, keepsake, memorabilia and souvenir.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is types of wrestling. The four answers are arm, freestyle, Greco-Roman and sumo.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Blue Jays to win Cy Young Award. The four answers are Clemens, Halladay, Hentgen and Ray.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a homophone for a letter of the alphabet. The four answers are batter’s eye (I), blue jay (J), golf tee (T) and pool cue (Q).

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 27, #1,652

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Dec. 27, No. 1,652.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle came together pretty quickly for me this time. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with B.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with H.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a quantity of goods produced at one time.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is BATCH.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Dec. 26, No. 1651 was SPEED.

Recent Wordle answers

Dec. 22, No. 1647: CONCH

Dec. 23, No. 1648: GLINT

Dec. 24, No. 1649: SPOOL

Dec. 25, No. 1650: PRISM

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Technologies

Not Ready for iOS 26? 10 iOS 18 Tweaks You Can Make Instead

If you’re still holding onto iOS 18, make these 10 changes to keep your iPhone running smoothly.

Still holding out on the inevitable update to iOS 26? You’re not the only one; you’ve likely seen chatter about reports of severe battery drain and the overall disappointment with the new Liquid Glass design. Apple is clearly aware of the friction, as shown by its ongoing development of the iOS 26.2 beta. For those of us committed to the stability and performance of iOS 18, there’s no reason to rush to install an OS that’s unfamiliar.

If your iPhone is still running on iOS 18 and you’re determined to maintain peak performance without touching the newer OS, you’re in the right place. I’ve compiled 10 iOS 18 tweaks that can enhance your device’s performance. Implementing these adjustments is remarkably simple, requiring as little as one minute per change.

Before you consider an upgrade that could introduce lag or instability, optimizing your current OS is the best strategy. By using and modifying these lesser-known settings, you can ensure your iPhone runs smoothly and efficiently, getting the maximum performance from an OS you’re familiar with.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Turn off categories in the Mail app

With email, everyone has their own way of dealing with the influx of messages. Traditionally, the Mail app has kept a chronological list, but that can get unwieldy if you also get scores of promotions, receipts and other types of email. The new categories feature creates virtual buckets for Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, and guesses how your messages should be sorted.

If that approach doesn’t work for you, here are two things to try.

• In the event that categories are somewhat useful, but you still want a chronological view of your Inbox, swipe all the way to the right of the categories and tap All Mail.

• To turn off categories altogether, tap the three-dot menu (…) in the top-right corner, and then tap List View.

Change the default buttons on the lock screen

In real estate, location is everything, and the bottom corners of the iPhone lock screen are the prime spots. Each is an easy thumb press away when your device is still locked. Before iOS 18, those posts were held by the flashlight and camera buttons, and there was no way to change them.

In iOS 18, you can finally replace them with other buttons — or remove them entirely, a balm for folks who unknowingly activate the flashlight (believe me, there’s a better way to turn it on). You can add buttons to recognize music via Shazam, enable Dark Mode, set an alarm/timer, enable Airplane Mode, open your Wallet, send money via Tap to Cash and more.

Here’s how:

1. On the iPhone’s lock screen, touch and hold anywhere on the display until you see the Customize button. You’ll need to unlock the phone using Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. If it opens the home screen, swipe down from the center top of the screen (not the right edge, which brings up Control Center).

2. Tap Customize and then choose Lock Screen.

3. Remove one of the buttons by tapping the – (minus) button on the icon.

4. To replace the button with another function, tap its space (now with a + icon) and then choose the one you want on the next screen. (You can also opt to leave that space empty with no button.)

5. Repeat those steps for the other button if you want to change it.

6. Tap Done when you’re finished.

7. Tap the lock screen again to exit the customize mode.

Get important alerts using Prioritize Notifications

For iPhone models that can run Apple Intelligence, a new option introduced in iOS 18.4 is fast becoming one of my favorite AI features. Go to Settings > Notifications, and under Apple Intelligence, tap Prioritize Notifications. As new alerts come in — and some days feel like they arrive in floods — Apple Intelligence determines which ones are more likely to be important to you. For example, texts from people in your contacts could be flagged in favor of random scam messages. On that settings screen, you can enable or disable priority notifications for individual apps.

Set up some of the new tasks available on the Action button

The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E, iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 17 line replaced the dedicated mute switch found on every earlier iPhone model with a configurable control. By default, it serves the same purpose — hold it to turn Silent Mode on or off — but you can configure it for other actions like opening the Camera app, performing multiple actions at once or even ordering coffee. The iOS 18.4 update added Visual Intelligence as an option for the Action button. That makes the AI technology available on the iPhone 16E, which does not include the novel new Camera Control but is now an option for any iPhone with an Action button.

In iOS 18, the Action button gets new capabilities. You can bypass Control Center and choose a control, such as opening the Remote interface for navigating Apple TV or using Shazam to identify a song.

To choose a different action for the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button. Swipe sideways to select and activate one of the available actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility options, tap the Choose button to pick which specific action to run.

Give your home screen a radical new look

You wouldn’t think that putting icons where you want is a radical new feature, but that’s because iOS has always had a locked arrangement. Apps get added from top to bottom, left to right. You could rearrange the order in which icons appear and move them to other screens, but that was about it.

In iOS 18, apps can be positioned nearly anywhere. You no longer need to deal with a wallpaper image of your kids or pets being obscured by icons. They still adhere to a grid — Apple isn’t about to sanction anarchy — but can be placed freely.

Also, Dark mode finally applies to all of the iPhone’s home screen, with options for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper image. Here’s how to customize the looks.

Arrange apps: Touch and hold the home screen to enter «jiggle mode,» and then drag the icons to new positions. It will still slide them around to fill spaces, but with patience, you can move them into the spots you want.

You can also quickly turn compatible apps into widgets that display more information. Maps, for instance, can be a map of your current location with shortcut buttons to search for places or bring up a list of nearby places (such as dinner spots). Touch and hold the app icon and look for a row of resize buttons in the menu that appears. Once expanded beyond the standard icon size, you can drag the handle in the bottom-right corner of the new icon. To get it back to its single icon size, you need to touch and hold again and choose the single-icon button

Set Dark mode: If you’ve ever subjected yourself to the retina blast of black text on a white background late at night in a darkened room, you will appreciate the new Dark mode option for the home and lock screens. iOS has previously included a Dark mode, where light backgrounds switch to black or dark gray, text switches to white or light gray and other interface elements are dimmed to coexist in a dark environment. That’s never been applied to the home and lock screens in any significant way — only the dock and some widgets — until iOS 18.

First, touch and hold the home screen to enter jiggle mode. Tap the Edit button in the top-left corner and choose Customize from the menu. At the bottom of the screen, choose a mode for the icons and background: Automatic, Dark or Light (I’ll get to Tinted in a moment). In Dark mode, the icons gain black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock become dark gray. (Developers have the option of making Dark mode icons for their apps. In the meantime, apps not yet optimized get a generally darker appearance.)

In Dark mode, the background image also changes. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically changes from light to dark as the day progresses, or you can choose colors that offer a light and dark option. If you use a photo, its overall exposure is reduced to dim the light output.

If you want dark icons but aren’t a fan of the dimmed photo treatment, tap the sun icon in the corner of the options sheet at the bottom of the screen to toggle back to Light mode just for the background.

Tinted icons: A new and different option is to tint all of the app icons so they share the same color. In the Customize options at the bottom of the screen, choose Tinted as the icon style. You can then adjust the Hue (the slider with the color spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the dark to light range) to choose the color tint you prefer.

What if you want to match a color from a background image? Tap the eyedropper button and then drag the reticle to pinpoint the color you want — the border indicates the selected color.

The tint is applied not only to icons but also to widgets. For a widget such as Photos, the images it displays show up as duotones to match the theme.

Large icons: Do the labels below each app icon seem redundant? Now, you can remove them and increase the size of the icons with one setting. Open the Customize options as described above and tap the Large button.

After making any of these changes, tap anywhere on the screen to apply them and exit the Customize interface.

Change up how the Control Center looks

Control Center was once a convenient place to quickly access controls such as playback volume and Airplane mode, but under iOS 18, it’s a configurable playground. You can position controls where you want, resize many to reveal more information and add new controls on multiple screens.

Swipe down from the top-right corner to reveal the Control Center (or swipe up from the bottom on the iPhone SE). To enter edit mode, touch and hold or press the + button at the top-left corner.

Just as with moving apps, drag a control to another slot on the screen to reposition it. Many of the controls also include a bottom-right handle that can resize the control — in most cases, it reveals the name of the control and its current status (such as Flashlight Off).

The Control Center also now spans multiple screens. Swipe up to view controls for currently playing media, Home controls for smart lights and appliances and a page dedicated to the communication options that appear when you long-press the Connectivity block containing Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular and others. Look closely, and you’ll see that those screens are actually individual controls expanded to occupy the entire Control Center area.

You can rearrange the order of those screens by moving their controls. Suppose you want Home controls to be the first swipe instead of Now Playing: In the editing mode, drag the large Home control up to the previous screen (Now Playing will shift to the right to make room).

To remove controls, tap the – (minus) button that appears. You can also add other controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll through the available options, ranging from starting a Screen Recording to a host of accessibility options.

Lock or hide any of your sensitive apps

Our phones carry some of our most sensitive data, and yet it’s not uncommon to hand a phone to a friend to view photos or look up something online. That doesn’t mean they’re going to snoop but it doesn’t not mean they might be more curious than you’re comfortable with. For data you want to ensure stays out of sight or to add a layer of protection in front of sensitive information, iOS 18 adds the ability to lock and hide apps.

For example, let’s say you keep an ongoing set of lists of gift ideas for family members in the Notes app. You can lock individual notes, but that requires a separate step. Maybe a few ideas were made as individual quick notes or drawings. Instead of micromanaging access, you can lock the entire Notes app by doing the following:

Touch and hold the app icon you want to lock and choose Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled) from the menu that appears. Confirm your choice by tapping Require Face ID (or similar) in the next dialog.

To remove the authentication step, touch and hold the app and choose Don’t Require Face ID (or similar).

Nothing outwardly indicates that an app is locked — you’ll find out when you try to open it. There’s one more level of app security available, which is to hide apps in a special locked folder. Touch and hold the app and choose Require Face ID and then tap Hide and Require Face ID in the dialog. Confirm the action by tapping Hide App on the next screen.

The app disappears from the home screen and gets slotted into a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library (swipe left beyond your last home screen to view the App Library). To access apps there, tap the Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID.

iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, such as many of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders, can only be locked and cannot be hidden at all. Also, the Hidden folder locks itself when you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library.

Turn off Loop Videos in the Photos app

Many apps have implemented a small but annoying (to me) feature, and now Photos under iOS 18 has it too: Videos automatically replay when you watch them until you tap the Pause button. That can be fun once or twice, or when viewing short clips. I’m not a fan of having to take action to make them stop each time.

Now I can take action once. Go to Settings > Photos, scroll down until you see Loop Videos and turn the option off. A video will play on its own but then stop at the end as it should.

If you’d rather the video didn’t play at all until you tap the Play button, also turn off Auto-Play Motion in the same Settings screen.

Adjust the view of your calendar

Big new features like locking and hiding apps are great additions but so are the tiny changes that you encounter every day. The Calendar app includes two new ways to view your schedule.

In iOS 18, when you’re in the Month view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view more or fewer details. As you «zoom in,» individual events appear as colored bars and then as labeled events with times, all while keeping the monthly grid of days and weeks.

The Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a new Multi Day view that shows two consecutive days to give you context for what’s coming without turning the phone into landscape orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button at the top of the Single Day view and choose Multi Day from the pop-up menu.

Improve movie and TV show dialogue in the TV app

Trouble hearing dialogue in movies and television shows isn’t a new problem — for example, Apple TV has had a feature for a while where you can ask Siri, «What did she say?» and it will automatically back up a few seconds, turn on subtitles and replay that section of the video. You can even buy soundbars that can overcome muffled TV speech. There are a lot of reasons it’s harder to hear dialogue but the TV app in iOS 18 includes a high-tech workaround to make dialog easier to discern.

While you’re watching a video in the TV app, tap the More (…) button and then expand the Audio heading in the menu that appears; if the phone is in horizontal orientation, tap the Audio Adjustments button. Tap Enhance Dialogue and choose Enhance or Boost. They each dampen background noise and raise the dialogue’s audio.

These are just a few selected features and changes in iOS 18. Check out our broader coverage of AI, including Apple Intelligence.