She asks him to repeat once, twice. Then she gets up from the couch and bends near, asking him again what he said. Finally, she gives up. He does, too. Eventually, these patients won't be able to talk, or walk, or even blink.
Caregivers sometimes have to manually open or close eyelids that get stuck.
Families say humor keeps them going. Mary Gualandi's husband was 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. When he fell in the bathtub, she couldn't lift him. So she turned on the faucet and floated him out. The night before Gino Gualandi died, she took him to a casino in Atlantic City, N.J., where he perched on a stool at a slot machine, pulling the lever.