What to say to a dementia parent on the phone
Kat, founder of Everline
6 min read
There is a particular silence that happens a few seconds into these calls. She has asked the question again, the one you answered forty minutes ago, and you are standing in a hallway at work with your hand over your eyes trying to decide what to say.
My mother has dementia. On her hardest days she called me more than thirty times, and I did not always know what to say either. What follows is not clinical advice. It is what I learned by getting it wrong for a long time.
The one rule underneath all the others
Answer the feeling, not the fact.
Almost nothing she asks is really a question. "Did you eat yet?" is not about food. "When are you coming?" is not about your calendar. Underneath nearly all of it is the same sentence, asked in whatever words she can still reach: am I safe, and does someone still have me.
Once you hear that sentence under the others, you stop trying to answer correctly and start trying to answer warmly, and the calls get shorter. Not because you have solved anything, but because the thing she actually called for has been given to her.
Start by saying who you are
Not "do you know who this is." Never that. Just say it, plainly, as though it is the most ordinary thing in the world.
"Hi Mom, it's me. It's Kat."
This costs you nothing and it saves her the small panic of searching for your name while you wait. Say it every time, even when she clearly knows. Especially then.
What to say instead
These are the swaps that made the most difference for us.
Instead of "don't you remember?" say "I was just thinking about that too." The first sentence asks her to perform a memory she does not have. The second lets her stand next to you in it.
Instead of "you already called me," say "I'm so glad you called." She does not know she called. Telling her she did only teaches her that calling you is a mistake, and she will still call, but now with shame attached.
Instead of "I already told you," just tell her again. The seventieth time is the first time for her. This is the hardest one to do sincerely at eleven at night, and it is the one that matters most.
Instead of "are you feeling better?" say "I'm right here with you." Anyone who lives with anxiety and pain will answer a question about their comfort by reporting their suffering, which sends them back down into it. Care that arrives as a statement lands. Care that arrives as a question asks her to inspect herself.
Instead of "I'll come by soon," say "I love you, and I'm thinking about you today." A promise of a visit becomes a wait. She may sit by the door. If a visit is genuinely planned, say it. If it is not, give her the warmth without the appointment.
Instead of correcting the year, the place, or who is president, let it go. If she is living in 1983, you can visit her there for four minutes. Nothing is lost.
The hardest question
Mine was "where's your father?" My father had been gone for years.
There is no good answer to this. Every family lands somewhere different and I do not think there is a single correct place to land. If you tell her the truth, she may hear it as news, and grieve it as though it just happened, and then ask again an hour later. Some families do this anyway, because honesty is their line and they hold it. I understand that.
We did not do that. We answered the feeling: that he is not here right now, that he loved her very much, that I am here. It felt like lying for about the first year. Then I stopped thinking of it that way. There were several true things I could say, and I was choosing the one that did not make her bury her husband again on a Tuesday afternoon.
Caregivers call this validation, and there is a whole approach built around it. It is not a trick. It is the decision to treat her emotional reality as the real one, because for her it is the only one there is. If you want the longer version of why correcting hurts, I wrote about why she calls again and again.
When she is crying
Say less, and say it slower.
Do not say "don't cry." Do not say "calm down." Do not go looking for the cause. Ask no questions at all, including the gentle ones, because a question is a task and she cannot do a task right now.
What works is presence, out loud, in short sentences:
"I'm here. I'm right here with you. I know. I love you so much."
Then wait. Then say it again. When she settles, and she usually does, drift gently toward something she loves. The garden. A food she used to make. Her sister. Do not stack questions on top of the calm you just built.
Saying goodbye
End it warmly and end it cleanly. Do not narrate that you have to go because of work, which sounds like you are leaving her for something better. Do not trail off.
"I love you, Mom. I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye."
And then let her hang up first if she wants to.
The part nobody tells you
You will do all of this perfectly and she will call again in nine minutes.
That is not a failure of your technique. The reassurance does not stick, because the part of her that stores it is the part that is going. You are not filling a bucket, you are pouring water into a river, and the only real measure of success is how she felt during the four minutes she had you.
That reframing was the only thing that made the volume survivable for me, and it is close to what I wrote about in caregiver burnout from constant phone calls. And it is also, eventually, why I built something to help carry it, because one person cannot pour water thirty times a day forever, and the calls do not stop just because you are at work, or asleep, or finally sitting down to dinner. If you are weighing the options, I laid them all out honestly, including the ones that are not us, in what to do when a parent calls all day.
If you are in the middle of this tonight: you are not doing it badly. You are doing something that does not have a version where it goes well, and you are still picking up the phone.
Questions families ask
What do you say to a parent with dementia on the phone?
Answer the feeling rather than the fact. Most questions from someone with dementia are not really requests for information, they are requests for reassurance, so the useful reply is warmth rather than accuracy. Say who you are without being asked, say something ordinary and true about your day, and tell them you love them as a statement rather than a question. Short sentences, unhurried, and the same warmth on the thirtieth call as the first.
Should you correct someone with dementia when they are wrong?
Usually not. Correcting a memory does not restore it; it just tells the person they are failing, and they feel the shame long after they have forgotten the correction. Caregivers call the alternative validation: you follow the emotion rather than the error. The exception is anything about their safety, where being clear matters more than being smooth.
What do you say when a parent with dementia asks for someone who has died?
This is the hardest one, and there is no answer that does not cost something. Telling the truth means she may hear the death as new, and grieve it fresh, over and over. Most families answer the feeling instead: that he is not here right now, that he loves her, that you are here. It is not a lie so much as choosing which true thing to say. Some families do tell the truth plainly, and that is a defensible choice too.
What should you not say to a parent with dementia on the phone?
Avoid 'don't you remember', 'I already told you', and 'you just called me', which all point at the memory loss without changing it. Avoid asking whether they feel better or are comfortable, because someone living with anxiety will simply report their suffering back to you. Avoid promising a visit or an arrival time you cannot guarantee, because they may hold onto it and wait.
Is it okay to repeat the same answer every time they ask?
Yes, and it is often the kindest thing you can do. To them it is the first time they have asked. Repeating your answer with the same warmth is not indulging the illness, it is meeting a person who is genuinely hearing it for the first time.
If the phone calls are the hard part, this is what I built.