How to Speak to Someone with Dementia

The video clip below provides advice on speaking to a person with dementia (time: 1 minute 30 seconds).

When speaking with an individual with dementia, it’s important to keep in mind that you should to speak to that person differently than you would someone without dementia. These verbal interactions are broken down into three parts – how you speak, what you say, and how you react to the dementia patient’s effort to communicate.

First, you need to be aware of how to say what it is you want to say to the Alzheimer’s patient. The tone of your voice should be friendly and approachable, your pitch kept low, and the speed in which you talk should be slow. For example, you don’t want your words to sound overbearing or bossy, even if you are trying to direct the dementia patient to do something.

When it comes to the pitch of your voice, it’s important to be aware that people who are older lose the ability to hear higher pitches of voice. Therefore, the higher your voice gets, the more difficult it will be for an Alzheimer’s patient to understand you. That’s why it’s important to keep your pitch low. This enables the individual with dementia the opportunity to better comprehend what you are trying to express.

As mentioned above, it’s also important for you to talk slowly to an individual with dementia. People with Alzheimer’s disease have slower reaction times and it takes them longer than a healthy person to understand what you are saying. Therefore, if you talk too quickly, the individual will not be able to take in what you are saying.