The letters
Short, practical letters for dementia caregivers
Written from the hallway, not the lecture hall. Sorted by what you are dealing with right now.
- Start here
- Day to day
- The hard hours
- Staying safe
- When something changes
- The bigger decisions
- For you
Start here · 5 letters
If you are new to this, or still not sure what you are looking at.
- Is it dementia, or just normal aging?
The five differences we look for on house calls — and what to do with a “maybe.”
- The stages of dementia, in plain language
Mild, moderate and severe — what actually changes, why the timelines online are unreliable, and what to prepare in each stage.
- Hearing loss and dementia: the risk you can actually change
What the evidence says, why hearing matters even more once dementia is here, which hearing help suits whom, and how to talk so they hear you.
- Free dementia printables vs. a stage guide
An honest comparison — what free trackers do well, what a blank form cannot do, and four questions to ask before you buy anything.
- The care binder: what to put in it — and why every family needs one
A physician’s checklist for the one object that turns a thousand details into a system anyone can use.
Day to day · 5 letters
The ordinary hours, which are most of them.
- Incontinence and dementia: toileting without the shame
Often it isn’t the bladder, it’s the bathroom. What to check first, what makes it worse, and which products actually help.
- What to say when they ask the same question again
Why answering the facts makes it worse, what to say instead, and what to do when they ask for someone who has died.
- When they stop eating
Why weight falls and food gets refused, the causes that are fixable, what works at the table — and the honest answer about feeding tubes.
- How to tell the kids about Grandma’s dementia
The three sentences that help children understand, how to make visits end well, and a permission slip for the parent in the middle.
- When your person with dementia refuses to shower
Why the no is rarely about being clean, what to change in the room and in your words, and why two or three times a week is enough.
The hard hours · 1 letter
Behavior that frightens or exhausts you — and what is usually underneath it.
- Sundowning: why evenings are harder — and what actually helps
Why the wheels come off at 4:30, what genuinely helps, and when it isn’t sundowning at all.
Staying safe · 5 letters
The risks worth acting on before something happens.
- Medical alert systems and dementia: who they help, and who they don’t
A pendant only works if the wearer can use it. Who it genuinely helps, what to ask before you buy, and what helps more later on.
- Dementia wandering: keeping them safe without locking them in
Why they leave, meeting the need behind it, the silent alarms that let you sleep — and exactly what to do in the first fifteen minutes if they go missing.
- Why people with dementia fall — and the causes families can’t see
Dementia roughly doubles the risk. The causes nobody checks — medications, blood pressure on standing, vitamin D, vision — and what to do in the hour after a fall.
- The brown bag appointment: five questions that make medications safer
Put every bottle in one bag, book a medication review, and ask five questions — including the one that gives your doctor permission to subtract.
- Dementia and driving: how to have the conversation
The warning signs that matter, how physician reporting works in Canada and the US, and how to do this without a war.
When something changes · 2 letters
For the moments that frighten you, and the worst nights.
- When to call the doctor — and when to go
A calm traffic-light way to think about the worrying moments: green, amber, red.
- The one page you hand the paramedics
The transfer sheet that changes the worst night of the year, and where it should live.
The bigger decisions · 2 letters
The conversations everyone puts off, and how to have them earlier.
- How to choose a memory care home: what to look for on the tour
Memory care, assisted living, or a nursing home — what to check before you visit, what to watch on the tour, and the question most families forget.
- Is it time for long-term care?
The safety questions, the caregiver questions nobody asks, and the promise that makes this the hardest decision of all.
For you · 2 letters
Because you are the other patient in this, whether or not anyone has said so.
- What respite actually is, and how to ask for it
A shift change, not a vacation. The four kinds of respite, who pays for it in the US — Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, your Area Agency on Aging — and the exact words that get a yes.
- The sentence that starts more help than you’d expect
The eight words to say at your own doctor’s appointment — and why they open doors nothing else does.
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