My father is still worried about the 'lost' trousers. He called me twice yesterday just to confirm that my sister had taken them. I assured him that this was the case. Since Tuesday I am now watching his speech for signs of dysphasia. It did not sound good today. I hope this is not going to worsen rapidly. It is hard enough with one parent unable to communicate properly. When they try to tell us what they need help with it can often degenerate into random guesses: 'Is it a food problem? Is it a house problem? Is it the cats?', and so on. Sometimes they forget what it was they were worried about, and we all just shrug our shoulders. It is not unusual to have a telephone conversation along these lines:

Dad: 'Mike, are you coming over here today?'

Me: 'I hadn't planned to, Dad. What's up?'

Dad: 'Well, I'd like a bit of help with things. I'm a bit unsure about things and I wondered, I wondered...'

Me: 'Is it anything in particular?'

Dad: 'Well, I forget so easily these days, err...'

My siblings and I have learnt that it is often a good idea to simply change subject - start talking about something nice and positive instead. I picked this tip up from the book 'Saturday' by Ian McEwan. Most of the time it works quite well. People with dementia are not too concerned about discontinuity in conversational flow.

My dad has also called me three times about a lightbulb that must be replaced. He said, 'I used to be able to fix this sort of thing myself, but I don't feel confident about it now.' I have to accept this, and I left him with the impression that I will be round fairly soon to fix it. But the fact is that I cannot really justify travelling over to my parents' house for just this one lightbulb. There are other lights in the room, so there is no safety hazard.

For a while, my brother and I pushed back a little on this kind of request, sometimes providing instructions over the phone, or perhaps insisting that dad just fix the problem himself. It is now better to simply say 'OK, I'll handle it.' Some weeks I visit them on four days out of seven. My brother is just as involved with their daily affairs. We sometimes operate like a tag team. I'll start a job, and he'll finish it the following day, or vice versa.