Distraction worked for a while. Many older people, myself included, don't drink enough water. I would offer my mother a cold drink, cup of coffee, or tea--also a distraction. Saying "I love you" also worked until her dementia became worse. On a frigid winter night, when the temperature was 32 below zero, and the wind chill frightening, my mother called to tell me she was going back home to New York. I called her physician immediately and he ordered her to nursing care, where she died a couple of years later.