Science Simplified: Yes, And

You can't rewrite the disease. But you can change the scene.

"I need to go home."

"You are home, Dad. You've lived here for forty years."

"No. I need to go home. My mother is waiting."

If you care for someone living with dementia, you've probably had some version of this conversation. You offer the facts. They push back. You offer the facts again, a little louder. Everyone ends up more upset than when it started.

No one wins that argument.

Improv performers have a rule for exactly this moment. It's two words long: yes, and.

Researchers at Georgia State University and Emory University wanted to know whether those two words could help families. They built a program called Improving Care through Improv and tested it with 43 family members and friends caring for someone with moderate dementia.

The format was simple. Four weekly group sessions, two hours each, co-led by an improv educator and a gerontologist. No stage. No audience. Just caregivers learning to play.

The results, published by Candace Kemp and colleagues in The Gerontologist, were encouraging. Three months after starting, caregivers reported a greater sense of mastery, meaning they felt more capable and in control of their caregiving. They also reported lower stress and fewer symptoms of depression.

And 100% said they were still using the skills.

That last number matters. So does this one: 42 of the 43 caregivers finished the program. For people who rarely get a free afternoon, that says a lot.

It's worth being clear about what this study is and isn't. It was a small pilot, without a comparison group, and the outcomes were self-reported. The researchers call it promising and say it needs more testing. That's the right way to read it. But promising is a good place to start.

So why would a theater game help with something as serious as dementia?

In improv, whatever your scene partner says is an "offer." Your job is to accept it (the yes) and build on it (the and). You don't stop the scene to correct them. You follow where it goes.

Dementia takes away the script. Conversations loop, facts shift, and the past and present blur. Improv trains people to work without a script, which is exactly the skill caregiving now demands.

In a companion paper on the same program, participants described what changed for them. They learned to "be in the moment" and to "meet people where they are." Many called the training fun, which is not a word caregivers get to use often.

Kemp put the heart of it plainly: "You can't change the person living with dementia, but you can change yourself and how you react."

That shift is where the stress relief comes from. You stop fighting a battle you can't win, and you get back a piece of control you thought you'd lost.

The idea is spreading. This summer, PBS NewsHour visited Mayo Clinic, where improv artist Tane Danger serves as the clinic's first Artist in Residence. He teaches "yes, and" to doctors, nurses, and staff. As Angela Lunde of Mayo's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center put it, "dementia requires a new set of communication tools."

When clinicians start borrowing from the theater, families should take note.

So what does "yes, and" look like in your living room?

Go back to that first conversation. "I need to go home. My mother is waiting."

Instead of correcting, try accepting the offer. "Your mom sounds wonderful. What do you think she's making for dinner?"

A few other ways in:

Ask about the memory. The details matter less than the feeling. Curiosity invites connection.

Join the task. If he's "getting ready for work," help him pick a tie.

Find the feeling underneath. "I need to go home" often means I want to feel safe. Answer that.

You won't get it right every time. Neither do improv performers. There are no perfect scenes, only the next one.

At Vallige, "meet people where they are" isn't just a nice phrase. It's the design brief.

Talkstories are conversations grounded in a person's own life history. Instead of quizzing someone on what they remember, they invite the person living with dementia into stories they love, with the familiar voice of someone from their Village. If the same question comes up for the fifth time that morning, the conversation can happen again, with the same warmth. That gives caregivers room to breathe.

For the harder moments, Moodshifters offer a short way to ease tension. And because this study measured caregiver stress, not just the experience of the person with dementia, the Caregiver Journal gives you a place to process your own day.

Vallige doesn't teach improv, and it isn't a substitute for training like this. If a program like Improving Care through Improv is offered near you, we'd encourage you to try it. Our goal is simpler: to protect your energy, so you have more of it for the moments that matter.

If you're caring for someone with dementia, you don't need a stage or a script to do this well. You already have the most important thing an improviser brings to a scene: you're paying attention.

The next time the conversation drifts somewhere unexpected, try saying yes.

Then see where it takes you.

Learn more about how Vallige supports families at vallige.com.

Sources

1. Kemp CL, et al. Improving Care through Improv: pilot test results of an innovative training program for care partners of people living with dementia. The Gerontologist. 2026;66(4). doi:10.1093/geront/gnaf240
2. Kemp CL, Morgan JC. Improving Care through Improv: understanding participant experiences with an innovative training program for family and friends of persons living with dementia. Alzheimer’s & Dementia. 2025;21(S4):e103952.
3. PBS NewsHour. How the Mayo Clinic is using the arts to improve patient care. August 27, 2026.
4. Emory News Center. Improv training: a new approach to dementia care. January 15, 2025.