In the Peanuts cartoons, the main characters only hear gibberish when a teacher or adult talks.

“That might be what you sound like to a person with dementia,” said Suzzane Weessies, family services coordinator with the Greater Pennsylvania Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Weessies spoke Thursday at LIFE Butler County about what a person with Alzheimer’s disease experiences, and how caregivers can be more effective knowing this.

“Trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes,” Weessies said.

When the disease begins, patients have memory challenges and difficulty completing familiar tasks.

A lesser known symptom is having trouble recognizing visual images and spatial relationships. Patients need contrasting colors to be able to see.

Weessies said patients may not walk on shiny floors because they think they are wet. She said that a person with the disease may not be able to recognize that dark floor tiles are part of a floor’s design and not holes in the ground.

She said that it sometimes is recommended for patients who can wander away that families place black mats near the front door.

Weessies had participants write down 10 things important to them. Then she gradually made them cross items out. She said people with the disease also lose things like this, but they do not get to choose which ones.

Because of this, whatever they have left is important to them.

“You (as a caregiver) want to be able to provide whatever that is for them,” Weessies said.

Losing control also is difficult for patients with the disease. As it progresses, they lose the ability to make everyday decisions, and they lose some control if they are sent to live in a facility.

Weessies said a major problem is that people with the disease are losing this control, but they cannot understand why.

“Things they see every day may stop being familiar,” Weessies said.

Patients may ask the same questions over and over again because they do not remember asking them. She said caregivers should get in the habit of answering the questions like it is the first time they were asked every time.

She also said caregivers need to work with patients on the details of things.

“They lose the big picture, often,” Weessies said.

She said people with the disease strictly are “living in the moment,” and people who are with them should focus on the present time, not the past or future.

“They are living moment to moment,” Weessies said. “The focus is right now.”

When communicating with anyone, words mean so much less than body language and vocal tones, Weessies noted. Since people with the disease can have trouble understanding language, body language becomes more important.

She said smiling and being positive during interactions is important. She said that people interacting with a person with the disease should avoid pointing, even if it is meant positively.

“That can be an aggressive gesture,” Weessies said.

Patients with the disease also experience fear, but they may not be able to express it.

“Fear is a really prominent emotion and experience of a person with dementia,” Weessies said, because they cannot explain how they are feeling and cannot understand situations.

She said patients can be comforted by items such as older photographs. Women, particularly those who are mothers, can be comforted by baby dolls.

Weessies said people taking care of patients needs to make each interaction meaningful and need to treat them with kindness and dignity.

“You need to be there with them,” Weessies said.