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

The Future’s Here: Testing Out Gemini’s Live Camera Mode

Gemini Live’s new camera mode feels like the future when it works. I put it through a stress test with my offbeat collectibles.

«I just spotted your scissors on the table, right next to the green package of pistachios. Do you see them?»

Gemini Live’s chatty new camera feature was right. My scissors were exactly where it said they were, and all I did was pass my camera in front of them at some point during a 15-minute live session of me giving the AI chatbot a tour of my apartment. Google’s been rolling out the new camera mode to all Android phones using the Gemini app for free after a two-week exclusive to Pixel 9 (including the new Pixel 9A) and Galaxy S5 smartphones. So, what exactly is this camera mode and how does it work?

When you start a live session with Gemini, you now how have the option to enable a live camera view, where you can talk to the chatbot and ask it about anything the camera sees. Not only can it identify objects, but you can also ask questions about them — and it works pretty well for the most part. In addition, you can share your screen with Gemini so it can identify things you surface on your phone’s display.

When the new camera feature popped up on my phone, I didn’t hesitate to try it out. In one of my longer tests, I turned it on and started walking through my apartment, asking Gemini what it saw. It identified some fruit, ChapStick and a few other everyday items with no problem. I was wowed when it found my scissors.

That’s because I hadn’t mentioned the scissors at all. Gemini had silently identified them somewhere along the way and then recalled the location with precision. It felt so much like the future, I had to do further testing.

My experiment with Gemini Live’s camera feature was following the lead of the demo that Google did last summer when it first showed off these live video AI capabilities. Gemini reminded the person giving the demo where they’d left their glasses, and it seemed too good to be true. But as I discovered, it was very true indeed.

Gemini Live will recognize a whole lot more than household odds and ends. Google says it’ll help you navigate a crowded train station or figure out the filling of a pastry. It can give you deeper information about artwork, like where an object originated and whether it was a limited edition piece.

It’s more than just a souped-up Google Lens. You talk with it, and it talks to you. I didn’t need to speak to Gemini in any particular way — it was as casual as any conversation. Way better than talking with the old Google Assistant that the company is quickly phasing out.

Google also released a new YouTube video for the April 2025 Pixel Drop showcasing the feature, and there’s now a dedicated page on the Google Store for it.

To get started, you can go live with Gemini, enable the camera and start talking. That’s it.

Gemini Live follows on from Google’s Project Astra, first revealed last year as possibly the company’s biggest «we’re in the future» feature, an experimental next step for generative AI capabilities, beyond your simply typing or even speaking prompts into a chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It comes as AI companies continue to dramatically increase the skills of AI tools, from video generation to raw processing power. Similar to Gemini Live, there’s Apple’s Visual Intelligence, which the iPhone maker released in a beta form late last year.

My big takeaway is that a feature like Gemini Live has the potential to change how we interact with the world around us, melding our digital and physical worlds together just by holding your camera in front of almost anything.

I put Gemini Live to a real test

The first time I tried it, Gemini was shockingly accurate when I placed a very specific gaming collectible of a stuffed rabbit in my camera’s view. The second time, I showed it to a friend in an art gallery. It identified the tortoise on a cross (don’t ask me) and immediately identified and translated the kanji right next to the tortoise, giving both of us chills and leaving us more than a little creeped out. In a good way, I think.

I got to thinking about how I could stress-test the feature. I tried to screen-record it in action, but it consistently fell apart at that task. And what if I went off the beaten path with it? I’m a huge fan of the horror genre — movies, TV shows, video games — and have countless collectibles, trinkets and what have you. How well would it do with more obscure stuff — like my horror-themed collectibles?

First, let me say that Gemini can be both absolutely incredible and ridiculously frustrating in the same round of questions. I had roughly 11 objects that I was asking Gemini to identify, and it would sometimes get worse the longer the live session ran, so I had to limit sessions to only one or two objects. My guess is that Gemini attempted to use contextual information from previously identified objects to guess new objects put in front of it, which sort of makes sense, but ultimately, neither I nor it benefited from this.

Sometimes, Gemini was just on point, easily landing the correct answers with no fuss or confusion, but this tended to happen with more recent or popular objects. For example, I was surprised when it immediately guessed one of my test objects was not only from Destiny 2, but was a limited edition from a seasonal event from last year.

At other times, Gemini would be way off the mark, and I would need to give it more hints to get into the ballpark of the right answer. And sometimes, it seemed as though Gemini was taking context from my previous live sessions to come up with answers, identifying multiple objects as coming from Silent Hill when they were not. I have a display case dedicated to the game series, so I could see why it would want to dip into that territory quickly.

Gemini can get full-on bugged out at times. On more than one occasion, Gemini misidentified one of the items as a made-up character from the unreleased Silent Hill: f game, clearly merging pieces of different titles into something that never was. The other consistent bug I experienced was when Gemini would produce an incorrect answer, and I would correct it and hint closer at the answer — or straight up give it the answer, only to have it repeat the incorrect answer as if it was a new guess. When that happened, I would close the session and start a new one, which wasn’t always helpful.

One trick I found was that some conversations did better than others. If I scrolled through my Gemini conversation list, tapped an old chat that had gotten a specific item correct, and then went live again from that chat, it would be able to identify the items without issue. While that’s not necessarily surprising, it was interesting to see that some conversations worked better than others, even if you used the same language.

Google didn’t respond to my requests for more information on how Gemini Live works.

I wanted Gemini to successfully answer my sometimes highly specific questions, so I provided plenty of hints to get there. The nudges were often helpful, but not always. Below are a series of objects I tried to get Gemini to identify and provide information about.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 26, #1407

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,407 for April 26. Hint: Fans of a certain musical group will rock out with this puzzle.

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 isn’t too tough. The letters are fairly common, and fans of a certain rock band might get a kick out of the answer. 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

There is one vowel in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: Start letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter C.

Wordle hint No. 4: Rock out

Today’s Wordle answer is the name of a legendary English rock band.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a violent confrontation.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is CLASH.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 25, No. 1406 was KNOWN.

Recent Wordle answers

April 21, No. 1402: SPATE

April 22, No. 1403: ARTSY

April 23, No. 1404: OZONE.

April 24, No. 1405: GENIE

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q.

Some solid starter words to try:

ADIEU

TRAIN

STARE

NOISE

Technologies

T-Mobile Adds New Top 5G Plans, T-Satellite and New 5-Year Price Locks

The new top unlimited plans, Experience More and Experience Beyond, shave some costs and add data and satellite options.

Just two years after expanding its lineup of cellular plans, T-Mobile this week announced two new plans that replace its Go5G Plus and Go5G Next offerings, refreshed its prepaid Metro line and wrapped them all in a promised five-year pricing guarantee.

To convert more subscribers, the carrier is also offering up to $800 to help customers pay off phone balances when switching from another carrier.

In a briefing with CNET, Jon Friar, president of T-Mobile’s consumer group, explained why the company is revamping and simplifying its array of mobile plans. «The pain point that’s out there over the last couple of years is rising costs all around consumers,» Friar said. «For us to be able to bring more value and even lower prices on [plans like] Experience More versus our former Go5G Plus is a huge win for consumers.»

The new plans went into effect April 23.

With these changes, CNET is already hard at work updating our picks for Best T-Mobile Plans, so check back soon for our recommendations.

More Experiences to define the T-Mobile experience

The top of the new T-Mobile postpaid lineup is two new plans: Experience More and Experience Beyond.

Experience More is the next generation of the Go5G Plus plan, which has unlimited 5G and 4G LTE access and unlimited Premium Data (download speeds up to 418Mbps and upload speeds up to 31Mbps). High-speed hotspot data is bumped up to 60GB from 50GB per month. The monthly price is now $5 lower per line than Go5G Plus.

The Experience More plan also gets free T-Satellite with Starlink service (the new name for T-Mobile’s satellite feature that uses Starlink’s constellation of satellites) through the end of 2025. Although T-Satellite is still officially in beta until July, customers can continue to get free access to the beta starting now. At the start of the new year, the service will cost $10 per month, a $5 drop from T-Mobile’s originally announced pricing. T-Satellite will be open to customers of other carriers for the same pricing beginning in July.

The new top-tier plan, Experience Beyond, also comes in $5 per line cheaper than its predecessor, Go5G Next. It has 250GB of high-speed hotspot data per month, up from 50GB, and more data when you’re traveling outside the US: 30GB in Canada and Mexico (versus 15GB) and 15GB in 215 countries (up from 5GB). T-Satellite service is included in the Experience Beyond plan.

However, one small change to the Experience plans affects that pricing: Taxes and fees, previously included in the Go5G Plus and Go5G Next prices, are now broken out separately. T-Mobile recently announced that one such fee, the Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery Fee, would increase up to 50 cents per month.

According to T-Mobile, the Experience Beyond rates and features will be «rolling out soon» for customers currently on the Go5G Next plan.

The Essentials plan is staying in the lineup at the same cost of $60 per month for a single line, the same 50GB of Premium Data and unlimited 5G and 4G LTE data. High-speed hotspot data is an optional $10 add-on, as is T-Satellite access, for $15 (both per month).

Also still in the mix is the Essentials Saver plan, an affordable option that has ranked high in CNET’s Best Cellphone Plans recommendations.

Corresponding T-Mobile plans, such as those for military, first responders and people age 55 and older are also getting refreshed with the new lineup.

T-Mobile’s plan shakeup is being driven in part by the current economic climate. Explaining the rationale behind the price reductions and the streamlined number of plans, Mike Katz, president of marketing, innovation and experience at T-Mobile told CNET, «We’re in a weird time right now where prices everywhere are going up and they’ve happened over the last several years. We felt like there was an opportunity to compete with some simplicity, but more importantly, some peace of mind for customers.»

Existing customers who want to switch to one of the new plans can do so at the same rates offered to new customers. Or, if a current plan still works for them, they can continue without changes (although keep in mind that T-Mobile earlier this year increased prices for some legacy plans).

Five years of price stability

It’s nearly impossible to think about prices these days without warily eyeing how tariffs and US economic policy will affect what we pay for things. So it’s not surprising to see carriers implement some cost stability into their plans. For instance, Verizon recently locked prices for three years on their plans.

Now, T-Mobile is building a five-year price guarantee for its T-Mobile and Metro plans. That pricing applies to talk, text and data amounts — not necessarily taxes and other fees that can fluctuate.

Given the uncertain outlook, it seems counterintuitive to lock in a longer rate. When asked about this, Katz said, «We feel like our job is to solve pain points for customers and we feel like this helps with this exact sentiment. It shifts the risk from customers to us. We’ll take the risk so they don’t have to.»

The price hold applies to new customers signing up for the plans as well as current customers switching to one. T-Mobile is offering the same deals and pricing to new and existing subscribers. Also, the five-year deal applies to pricing; it’s not a five-year plan commitment.

More money and options to encourage switchers

The promise of a five-year price guarantee is also intended to lure people from other carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon. As further incentive, T-Mobile is offering up to $800 per line (distributed via a virtual prepaid Mastercard) to help pay off other carriers’ device contracts. This is a limited-time offer. There are also options to trade in old devices, including locked phones, to get up to four new flagship phones.

Or, if getting out of a contract isn’t an issue, T-Mobile can offer $200 in credit (up to $800 for four lines) to bring an existing number to the network.

Four new Metro prepaid plans

On the prepaid side, T-Mobile is rolling out four new Metro plans, which are also covered by the new five-year price guarantee:

• Metro Starter costs $25 per line per month for a family of four and there is no need to bring an existing number. (The cost is $105 the first month.)

• Metro Starter Plus runs $40 per month for a new phone, unlimited talk, text and 5G data when bringing an existing number. For $65 per month, new customers can get two lines and two new Samsung A15 phones. No autopay is required.

• Metro Flex Unlimited is $30 per line per month with autopay for four lines ($125 the first month) with unlimited talk, text and 5G data.

• Metro Flex Unlimited Plus costs $60 per line per month, then $35 for lines two and three and then lowers the price of the fourth line to $10 per month as more family members are added. Adding a tablet or smartwatch to an existing line costs $5. And streaming video, such as from the included Amazon Prime membership, comes through at HD quality.

See more: If you’re looking for phone plans, you may also be looking for a new cell phone. Here are CNET’s picks.