Eight things you can do with someone living with dementia, right now, on this page. They need no preparation, no equipment and no printing. Every one of them is built so that nobody can get anything wrong.
If you are looking after someone, the hardest part of an afternoon is often not the practical care — it is finding something to do together that feels like company rather than supervision. That is what these are for.
This is not a test. There is no score, no timer and no wrong answer anywhere on this page. It is a set of things to do together, for the pleasure of doing them.
Choose an activity
Which one to try first
They are not in order of difficulty, but some ask more of a person than others. On a good day, conversation starters and the year was give the most to talk about — both work by handing over a subject and then getting out of the way. On a harder day, this or that and goes together ask almost nothing: one is pure preference, the other is a single familiar word.
Sing along is often the one that surprises people. Songs learned young tend to stay put, and half a verse counts. If the words do not come, hum it — humming together is the activity.
Something to do is the odd one out: it is not played on the screen at all. It is a list of ideas for the next twenty minutes away from it, sorted by the kind of day you are having.
How to use them
Sit beside the person, not opposite them. Side by side is less like being interviewed. One screen between two people works better than one each.
Read the prompt out loud and then stop talking. Silence is not failure; it is thinking. Give it longer than feels comfortable.
Follow the answer wherever it goes. If a question about school turns into a story about a dog, the dog is the point. You are not collecting correct answers, you are having a conversation.
Stop while it is still going well. Ten good minutes is a success. There is no target and nothing to finish.
If a question lands badly, move on immediately. Press the button for another one. Some memories are painful, and no prompt is worth pushing through distress for.
Why there is no score
Every activity here can be done without producing a wrong answer. That is a deliberate design choice, and it is the reason this page looks different from most “brain games”.
A scored game invites the person to measure themselves, and the measurement is the part that hurts. It also invites the site to imply something it has no business implying — that playing will slow the condition down. Nothing on this page will do that, and nothing on this page claims to.
If what you actually want is to think through changes in memory or thinking, that is a different job and it has its own tool: the cognitive self-check. If you are trying to work out where things stand, use the dementia stage navigator. And if you are the one doing the caring, the caregiver burnout check is for you rather than for them.
Where these ideas come from
Conversation starters and the year was draw on reminiscence — talking about the past using prompts. A Cochrane review of reminiscence therapy for dementia found the effects inconsistent and often small, varying considerably by setting and format, with some positive effects on quality of life, cognition, communication and mood, and probable benefits for cognition and mood when done one to one. Woods B, et al. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018 (PMID 29493789).
Sing along is here because receptivity to music often lasts well into the later stages of dementia. It is worth being precise about what the evidence shows. A Cochrane review updated in 2025 pooled 30 trials and found that, compared with usual care, at least five sessions of a music-based therapeutic intervention probably improves depressive symptoms slightly and may improve overall behavioural problems, while likely does not improve agitation or aggression; compared with other activities it may improve social behaviour. The reviewers found no evidence of effects lasting four weeks or more after treatment ended. van der Steen JT, et al. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2025 (PMID 40049590). Those were structured programmes, most of them run in care homes and many of them led by music therapists. Singing at a kitchen table is not the same thing, and we are not going to pretend it is. It is here because it is pleasant and it is easy, which is reason enough.
Choosing the activity to suit the person is why there are eight of these rather than one. A Cochrane review of personally tailored activities for people with dementia living in the community found they may reduce challenging behaviour and may slightly improve quality of life, while explicitly cautioning that the certainty of the evidence is low, and finding no clear benefit for depression or for carer burden. Möhler R, et al. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2020 (PMID 32786083).
Removing the wrong answer follows the principle behind errorless learning, where a task is arranged so mistakes are unlikely. It is worth being straight about the evidence here too: a randomised trial of relearning daily activities found that structured relearning helped and the gains lasted six months, but that the errorless version had no additional effect over ordinary trial-and-error learning. Voigt-Radloff S, de Werd MM, et al. Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, 2017 (PMID 28335810). These activities avoid wrong answers for comfort and dignity, then — not because doing so is proven to improve anything.
The dates and events in the year was were each checked against a primary or reference source before they were written in, and every song in sing along is old enough to be out of copyright, so you can sing it, record it or print it without anyone minding.
None of this is medical advice, and none of it replaces care from a qualified clinician. See our editorial policy for how we source and correct what we publish.
More to try
For written activity ideas away from a screen, browse activities and games, or start with the activities and engagement guide. For help with the rest of the day, see caregiver daily support.