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

OpenAI boss Sam Altman spells out how and why the AI industry wants to slow down: ‘We could lose control’

OpenAI’s chief has made comments detailing how AI safety frameworks and a slowdown could work, as the industry unites behind concerns.

OpenAI chief Sam Altman has made his most detailed comments yet on how artificial intelligence safety frameworks could work, after he joined Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Elon Musk in calling for an industry slowdown over the weekend.

Safety concerns over the technology have hit fever pitch since an Anthropic researcher quit last week, warning that those building it believed that it could “kill us all by the end of the decade” and prompting other employees at the lab and rival OpenAI to warn of catastrophic risks.

AI bosses have since shown a rare display of unity, with both Altman and Musk on Saturday backing an essay from Amodei that urged AI companies to slow how quickly they improve their most advanced models.

AI stocks were down Monday as investors digested the comments. U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed the CEOs’ warning on Sunday, saying a slowdown was not needed and would jeopardize America’s lead in AI over China.

Sam Altman sets out 2 ways AI could go ‘very badly’

“We welcome a federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements for frontier AI,” Altman said in a post on X just after midnight on Monday, adding that “no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness.”

Altman warned of two ways AI progress could go “very badly,” including losing “control of the future to AI” and too much power concentrating around a single person or company.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington are scrambling to address calls for safeguards.

This all comes as Anthropic and OpenAI gear up for what’s expected to be historic initial public offerings. Altman ruled out going public in 2026 in an interview with Fortune published Saturday.

Amodei’s three-step proposal

Many AI safety fears revolve around models developing the ability to improve their own performance, a technique known as recursive self-improvement, or RSI.

“Since roughly this summer, AI has been advancing drastically faster, driven primarily by AI’s growing ability to build the next generation of AI,” said Amodei in his essay. “Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all.”

Amodei proposed a three-step plan aimed at tempering the pace of development without “sacrificing commercial advantage or the United States’ lead in AI.”

The plan involves each frontier AI company giving “employee-like access” to external evaluators — which he said Anthropic was committing to now. Amodei also called for frontier AI labs to establish common safety standards, limit the rate of unchecked AI progress and attempt to coordinate efforts globally.

On Saturday, Altman said in a brief X post he agreed with Amodei that AI companies should “pace the frontier.” He added that “committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same.”

“Consistent rules to manage frontier risk so that we can maximize the benefits are a good idea (and we are excited by ideas like independent auditors),” Altman said in his Monday post. But, he added, “When we talk about ‘pacing,’ we do not mean ‘stopping.’ Progress has been rapid and will continue to be.”

“Pacing will be well worth this cost; no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring,” he concluded.

“Where we will need the help of our government is for international coordination. But first we should do what we can ourselves.”

International cooperation

Coordinating AI safety measures and an industry slowdown with rival AI developers in China will likely pose big challenges.

The U.S. and China remain locked in a battle for AI supremacy, with tensions ratcheting up as Chinese models have become more advanced and their global adoption grows.

Amodei said Sunday that the “toughest dilemma” about his proposal is what happens if adversarial nations choose not to do the same.

“The more long-term thing would be working together to put a speed limit on the rate of AI progress,” Amodei told CBS News’ “Sunday Morning.”

“I think that’s going to be very difficult because the incentives to pull ahead and the military advantage that you get from that are so large. And honestly, I don’t know if it’s possible, but we should try.”

The Anthropic CEO’s essay has drawn criticism in China, with the state-owned Global Times writing on Monday that “Amodei’s proposals seek to portray China’s legitimate development in AI as a threat and further fuel confrontation between China and the US in the field.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that the CEOs’ comments were “fearmongering.”

Technologies

Novo CEO tells CNBC why drugmaker is rebranding, needs to ‘rethink’ obesity strategy

The Danish drugmaker called the changes the beginning of a new chapter for the company, which faces stiff competition from Eli Lilly.

Novo Nordisk

The Danish drugmaker called the changes the beginning of a new chapter, as it has been grappling with stiff competition from chief rival Eli Lilly

In an exclusive interview with CNBC, Novo CEO Mike Doustdar said the rebrand and culture shift are “part of the same package” for the company to evolve its strategy as it tries to win back customers from Lilly.

“I think there’s no secret that over the last four or five years, the external environment and what has happened to Novo Nordisk has really made us reflect how we need to readjust and rethink about the next decade to come and what shifts are needed in our strategic direction,” he told CNBC.

Doustdar said the “work is cut out for us,” adding that Novo needs to improve several aspects – from research and development and manufacturing to sales and marketing – to be able to compete in the obesity drug market.

Shares of Novo have dropped about 15% this year despite the successful launch of the oral version of Wegovy, which surpassed 3 million prescriptions as of June. The company recently scrapped three trials on an experimental cardiovascular drug. That challenge came as it continues to lag in the obesity space with 38.8% market share compared to Lilly’s 60.9% in the second quarter, according to a Lilly earnings presentation citing IQVIA data.

In a release, Novo also announced a broader company rebrand focused around the phrase “Lasting Health Starts Now,” which promotes the idea that patients should make progress toward long-term well-being immediately rather than later. The company said the marketing is a bid to build relevance and trust with the public and other stakeholders, and bring “breakthrough science closer to people’s daily lives.”

When asked whether the rebrand and cultural overhaul were driven by Novo’s recent market share losses in obesity, Doustdar said the changes were less about competitive setbacks and more about adapting to a dramatically different operating environment.

He said the rapid growth of obesity treatments has transformed Novo’s patient base and shifted the market toward a more consumer-oriented model, where patients move on and off therapies more frequently than in traditional diabetes care. As a result, Doustdar said Novo needs to become more focused on meeting patients where they are, while increasing the speed and clarity of its decision-making to keep pace with the evolving market.

“Our operating environment phenomenally changed compared to just 10 years ago,” he told CNBC.

Novo Nordisk will remain the legal name for the company, according to the release. That original name dates back to the 1989 merger of two competing Danish pharmaceutical companies: Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium and Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium.

The drugmaker said its corporate culture will be based on a new set of four principles that will help it gain advantages in an increasingly competitive market where more of its products have gone direct-to-consumer.

Those tenets are innovating with patients as the primary focus, raising the company’s performance to “create greater value for all stakeholders,” setting clearer priorities and simpler workflows and never compromising on patient safety and ethics.

“When you think about strategy, that’s really the the journey you’re taking and the direction you’re setting the company to go forward with,” Doustdar said. “But you also need behaviors. You need a cultural element that allows your colleagues and yourself to really make sure that a strategy gets executed.”

Despite its challenges, Novo has had one significant tailwind this year in the launch of the oral version of Wegovy. On top of its explosive launch, the pill had a head start over a rival weight loss pill from Lilly called Foundayo.

Doustdar said Novo has maintained “a lion’s share” of the oral market even with competition, noting that physicians find the Wegovy pill to be more effective than Lilly’s, with around 17% of weight loss.

Technologies

Iran says it destroyed U.S. advanced drone over Hormuz as Middle East conflict intensifies

Iran said it downed an advanced American drone over the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran and Washington trade warnings and strikes with no sign of de-escalation.

Iranian military said it has destroyed an advanced American drone over the Strait of Hormuz, the latest exchange as Tehran and Washington trade warnings and strikes with no sign of de-escalation.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Monday that its “new advanced aerospace defence system” intercepted and destroyed an advanced MQ-1 drone over the Hormuz strait, without providing further details on the drone’s mission. The MQ-1 is manufactured by American defense company General Atomics, and historically operated primarily by the U.S. Air Force and the CIA.

The incident followed a series of Iranian operations against U.S. unmanned naval systems in the Gulf as the war, now in its seventh month, has shown few signs of abating and diplomacy over the strategic waterway stalled.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. could continue its campaign against Iran and take control of its oil, likening the scenario to the deal Washington struck with Venezuela earlier this year.

“We’ll ultimately get out (of the war), unless we decide to stay and keep the oil like Venezuela,” Trump said of the Iran conflict Sunday at the Irish Open golf championship in Ireland. He added that U.S. revenue from the Venezuela arrangement, which granted Washington access to roughly a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves, has “paid for the war many times.”

Under the agreement reached in August, Venezuela ceded majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of oil reserves — more than double America’s own reserves — in exchange for $209 billion to Venezuela’s state treasury. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the deal would also bring close to $100 billion in private investment to reinvigorate its economy.

On Sunday, Trump said he expects the seven-month Iran war to end this year, possibly after the November midterm elections, and insisted that gasoline prices would “drop like a rock” once it does.

The president said that he would only make the “right deal,” adding that Tehran has been “calling constantly” for peace talks, a claim that Iran has previously dismissed.

Stalled Hormuz talks

A meeting in Oman between Gulf countries and Iran to discuss possible agreements on the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas flows, has been postponed, Omani foreign minister Badr Albusaidi said on X on Sunday, citing the need for “consensus.”

Officials from Iran and Gulf nations had been expected to meet on Monday and sign an agreement establishing an Iran-Oman shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, though no direct talks between the U.S. and Iran were ongoing.

The Strait of Hormuz has been subjected to an Iranian and later U.S. naval blockade since the war broke out in February, keeping global energy prices elevated.

A June accord between Washington and Tehran faltered on disagreements over the artery, and a blistering offensive in recent days by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has given the Tehran-allied group leverage over a second critical waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb.

Ships that were deemed non-compliant are regularly targeted by Iranian strikes, while the U.S. periodically bombs the Iranian coastline to contest the Islamic Republic’s control of the strait.

Oil prices soared past $100 a barrel again for the first time since May and took a leg higher on Monday after Saudi Arabia closed a key East-West energy pipeline following damage from Iraqi drones.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were up 2.3% to $102.39 per barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded 2.4% higher to $107.11 a barrel.