A harm-reduction approach to phones in dementia
For a person living with dementia, a smartphone is a lifeline—but not without risk.
Smartphones can be both helpful and challenging for people living with dementia. They may support connection, independence, and enjoyment, but can also contribute to distress, confusion, and vulnerability to scams.
This website provides practical guidance for caregivers and clinicians on managing smartphone-related challenges using a harm-reduction approach—preserving the benefits of technology while reducing the risks.
Little has been written about this, in research or elsewhere, so the suggestions that follow are a starting point rather than a definitive guide.
For general information only — not medical advice. Please consult a qualified health professional about any changes to care.
The approach
A simple framework: Keep, Shape, Protect
A phone does many things at once—some helpful, some harmful. So let's Keep what helps, Shape what confuses and overwhelms, and Protect against what can cause harm.
Keep
Protect what genuinely helps — calls with family, familiar music, photos, and reminders for meals and medications.
Shape
Ease the parts that confuse or overwhelm — late-night use, a cluttered screen, long message threads — with small changes to settings.
Protect
Watch for what can cause real harm — scams, lost sleep, increased distress — and add simple safeguards.
Guiding families
How to guide a family toward small, shared adjustments, and where to send them for the practical steps.
Guidance for the visit For families & caregiversSteps to try at home
Practical steps for talking, simplifying the phone, improving sleep, and staying safe from scams.
Practical stepsFor clinicians
Guiding families toward small, shared adjustments
When a phone is causing problems, families of people with dementia may feel they have no choice but to take it away. In a short appointment, you can help the family move toward a harm-reduction approach—one that lets the person continue enjoying the benefits of the phone while being less exposed to its downsides.
Guiding the family in the visit
Suggest a different approach
- Acknowledge what the phone does. It may be a key way to stay in touch with family, a source of comfort, or a way to stay oriented. If it is removed abruptly, that can cause more distress, not less.
- Suggest adjusting the phone — keeping what helps and limiting what doesn't.
What to coach families to try
- Making changes with the person where possible.
- Pointing the family to the at-home steps below.
One way to open the conversation
"The phone clearly matters to her — it's how she stays in touch with people and stays calm. We can keep the parts that help and adjust the parts that don't. Here is a place to start."
The at-home steps on this site
The caregiver section covers the same approach — talking, simplifying the phone, improving sleep, and guarding against scams.
Alzheimer Society First Link
A referral pathway that connects patients and families to local education, support, and counselling across Canada.
For families & caregivers
Practical steps
None of these are cures, but they can reduce the difficulties while keeping the benefits a phone provides. Use whichever fit the person's situation.
Communicating without conflict
Respectful, non-confrontational communication is the foundation for everything that follows. A calm, patient approach makes every other change easier and helps maintain trust.
Make the phone easier to use
A crowded screen and frequent updates can be confusing and frustrating. A simpler layout keeps the device usable while clearing away what isn't needed.
- iPhone: Assistive Access turns the phone into a large, pared-down interface (Settings → Accessibility → Assistive Access).
- Android: try Samsung's Easy Mode (Settings → Display → Easy mode) or Pixel's Simple View (Settings → Accessibility); Action Blocks adds big one-tap buttons for calls and routines.
- Delete unneeded apps: phones usually come loaded with apps that are never used. Removing or hiding the ones the person doesn't need leaves fewer ways to get confused or lost.
- Either phone: keep a single home screen, leave only essential contacts, and make the text larger.
Reducing use at night
Screens late at night may interfere with sleep, and poor sleep can worsen daytime confusion and irritability. This link isn't well studied in dementia, but reducing phone use overnight is low-risk and reasonable to try.
- iPhone: set an overnight Downtime in Screen Time that still lets music and calls through.
- Android: use Digital Wellbeing's Bedtime mode and Focus mode to dim the screen and pause distracting apps overnight.
Preserve what helps
The goal is not to silence the phone. Calls with family, familiar music, photos, and reliable reminders support wellbeing, and are worth keeping as you change other things.
- Set up simple, reliable reminders for daily tasks.
- Keep an easy way to reach family in an emergency.
- Make favourite music and photos easy to find.
Guarding against scams
Older adults are often targeted by deceptive calls, texts, and messages. A few habits, and knowing where to report, can help.
- Never share a SIN, banking details, passwords, or one-time codes by phone or text.
- Government and banks won't demand payment in gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency.
- When something feels off, hang up and call back on a number you look up yourself.
Support for caregivers
A phone can ease a caregiver's work but also add to it. Local programs across Canada offer guidance, counselling, and connection with other caregivers.