What Are Some Good Questions to Ask Elderly
Twenty questions for visiting an older parent, grandparent, neighbor or resident, starting with their life as it is now and moving into the past. The notes explain what each question tends to open up, and the guide covers hearing loss, memory changes and recording a story before it is lost.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What's your day like now, from when you get up?
Why ask it
Starting in the present treats them as someone with a current life rather than a source of anecdotes. It also tells you plainly how much help they are getting and what has quietly become difficult.
Who have you seen or spoken to this week?
Why ask it
The most useful question if you are keeping an eye on someone's wellbeing. A week with no names in it is worth noticing, and it is easier to hear that here than in an answer to "are you lonely."
What are you watching or reading at the moment?
Why ask it
Low effort, and it gives you something to bring next time, a book, a boxed set, a newspaper. People who have stopped reading because of their eyes rather than their interest will often say so here.
Can you walk me through the house you grew up in?
Why ask it
Rooms are easier to recall than dates, so this works even when memory is patchy. The tour usually collects people and incidents along the way without you having to ask about them.
What did your parents do for work?
Why ask it
Anchors the family in a specific place and trade, which is the sort of detail that disappears within one generation. Follow with what they earned or how the house smelled, and the story gets much more concrete.
What was your first job, and what did it pay?
Why ask it
The wage figure is what makes this land: they remember it precisely, and it fixes the era better than any date. Expect the story of the boss, the walk to work, or the thing they bought with the first packet.
What did you do on a Saturday night when you were twenty?
Why ask it
Reliably produces a livelier answer than asking about their youth in general, because it names a specific evening. Dance halls, cinemas, kitchens and street corners all come out of this one.
What music was playing then? Do you still listen to it?
Why ask it
Old songs stay accessible when a lot else has faded, and playing one during the visit often does more than another question would. Names of singers may come back once the tune does.
Who was the first person you fell for?
Why ask it
Gentler than asking about marriage, and it does not assume they married or that a spouse is still living. Many people have never been asked this and are pleased to be, though let it go if the answer is short.
Was there someone in the family everyone told stories about?
Why ask it
Finds the family legend, the difficult uncle or the great-aunt who emigrated. These are the stories that carry the family's own version of itself, and they are usually the first to be lost.
What's the first thing you bought with your own money?
Why ask it
Small, sensory and easy to answer on a low-energy day. The object tends to come with the shop, the price and the feeling of having earned it.
What did you worry about when you were my age?
Why ask it
Puts you on the same footing instead of asking them to hand down wisdom, which is why the answers are more honest. Money, a war, a parent's health and a marriage they were unsure about are common ones.
Was there a point where your life changed direction?
Why ask it
Invites the turning point in their own terms rather than yours, and it may not be the event the family treats as central. Listen for whether they chose it or it happened to them.
If you could go back to one year for a single day, which would it be?
Why ask it
The single day keeps it from becoming a question about regret. The year they choose, and who is in it, usually says who mattered most, and sometimes it is nobody the family expects.
Is there something you did that the rest of the family doesn't know about?
Why ask it
Often gets a laugh and occasionally something substantial: a job left, a proposal declined, money lent and never mentioned. Ask it privately rather than across a room, and let them stop where they want.
What do people say to you now that you find irritating?
Why ask it
Gives them room to object to being spoken to loudly, slowly, or as though decisions should be made for them. The answer will usually improve how you and your family talk to them.
What do you miss being able to do?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and then leave a long pause. Driving, gardening, cooking for people and going to church come up often, and some of what is named can be partly restored with a lift or an adaptation.
Is there anyone you lost touch with that you still think about?
Why ask it
Sometimes leads somewhere practical, since a name and a town is often enough to find someone. Even when it does not, it lets them say the person's name out loud, which people rarely get to do.
Is there a story you'd want written down so it isn't lost?
Why ask it
Hands them the choice of what gets kept rather than you deciding. Ask permission to record or take notes, and expect the story they pick to be a surprise.
Is there anything you want us to know while we're all here to hear it?
Why ask it
An open door to whatever they have been carrying, whether that is a wish about their care, a message for someone, or nothing at all. Ask calmly, accept a short answer, and do not follow it with a second attempt.
Making the visit work
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Practical setup
- Sit where they can see your face, in decent light, and stay at eye level. Lip reading and expression do a lot of the work that hearing aids cannot.
- Speak a little more slowly and a little lower in pitch rather than louder. Raised voices distort consonants and are harder to follow, not easier.
- One conversation at a time. Background television, several grandchildren talking at once and an open-plan room defeat most hearing aids.
- Keep visits shorter than you think you should. Forty minutes of real attention is worth more than three hours where everyone drifts onto their phone.
- Bring something to look at: photographs, a map of the old neighborhood, an object from the house. Prompts produce more than questions do.
If memory is changing
- Avoid "do you remember," which puts them on trial. Offer the detail instead: "you were living on Mill Street then, weren't you," and let them take it from there.
- Do not correct dates, names or the order of events. The point of the conversation is the person, not the accuracy of the record.
- If the same story comes round again, let it. Repetition is often about what still feels important rather than a lapse.
- Sensory routes work when factual ones do not: songs, smells, hymns, a recipe, the feel of a tool. Long-held skills and music tend to outlast recent memory.
- When someone gets distressed or confused, stop asking and change register. Sit with them, put music on, make tea. The visit does not need to produce anything.
Recording it
- Ask first, and keep the recorder visible rather than hidden. A phone on the table is usually forgotten within minutes.
- Note the date and who is present at the start of the recording. In twenty years that will be the part you cannot reconstruct.
- Ask for spellings of names and places while they are talking, and write them down. Transcribing later without them is guesswork.
- Do two or three short sessions instead of one long one. Energy drops, and the second visit is usually better than the first because they have been thinking about it.
- Share the recording back with them and with the family. People who hear themselves listened to will offer more next time.
Tone
Older people are frequently talked about rather than to, and asked to perform wisdom rather than to say what they actually think. The most useful thing you can do is treat the conversation as an ordinary one between adults: ask about now as well as then, accept a short answer without prompting twice, and let silences sit. If the visit turns toward illness, dying or funeral wishes, follow rather than steer, keep your voice level, and take the practical parts seriously enough to write them down and tell whoever needs to know.