Any advice on how we can communicate better with my dad or at least what should we do/how can we respond to him when he talks/asks questions but he doesn't make ANY sense and he gets agitated (including shouting) because we don't understand what he's trying to ask or the things he's trying to tell us! It's very distressing for him, and us. He has brain mets. Apparently his treatment has stopped working and they've progressed and that's what's causing this. I don't know how long he may have. Not clear. But it sounds very bad, if they're right about the CT scan. He's in hospital at the moment. Meeting with Oncologist on Tuesday. This is fucking horrible. It's quite unbelievable that this is all happening so suddenly after we had such good results of tumours shrinking and oncology were pleased and they didn't expect this so soon after the good scan results. My mum said "yes" to one of my dad's questions that made no sense, he said "yes??!?!!" seemed very shocked. I told her not to say "yes" when she doesn't have a clue what she's saying "yes" to. But it's hard to know what to say. She didn't want to ignore him. We've tried saying "I don't know", "hmm", "ah", "ok", "don't worry", "I love you", trying to guess what he meant and answering, talking about something else, holding his hand, rubbing his arm, hugging him, putting hand on his forehead, changing subject/focus of attention, telling him we don't know what he means, just staring at him and not having a clue what to say! Etc. He repeats and gets frustrated and angry if we don't answer or if we say we don't understand. I'm sure he's scared too. He said before that he's scared. It's not even real words a lot of the time now. On one occasion I repeated his nonsense sentence back to him (which I shouldn't have), like asking if that's what he said, and he said "yes" like I was right and like it made total sense. It was total nonsense. Also, when talking to him he mostly just repeats what we say, or says nonsense back, sometimes I can tell/guess what he means, other times not, sometimes he makes complete sense but this is rare now, well it was today anyway. Dexamethasone made all this shit go away in the past, but it's not helping this time. Or maybe I forgot how long it takes (how long should it take if dex will help it?). But actually, this time these issues with speaking started after he started the dexamethasone (was given for something else), apparently this can be caused by dex. Idk. Also, as well as it being very hard not being able to communicate at this time, and it causing him distress, it's also hard and worrying because he can't communicate how he's feeling to get the help he needs for symptoms or basic care. He looks in distress sometimes and we ask him if he's ok, asking him does he have headache (while touching his head), is he hot/cold, does he feel sick/have pain (while we touch areas he may have pain), does he need toilet. I think he says the wrong answers too sometimes. He has been saying/doing opposite, so I'm worried he's saying "no" when it's actually "yes", as it appears the answer should be yes. We can only try to help when we're at the hospital, which is not 24/7. Unfortunately I am very anxious about the care he's getting at the moment. This is all from a fucking mole turned into malignant melanoma he had removed around 16 years ago. Removed then with no need for anything else except a wider excision at the site. Then last year, bam, it's all over his brain and other organs, we never knew this could happen from so long ago but apparently it can. Since last July we were told this would not be cured now but we hoped for longer time (and were basically told so recently). Some people live a long time with this, depends which treatments they're given and each person is unique in their response. Anyway I've blabbed off topic. I needed help with communication.