Something to read together
If someone in your family sent you this page, here is a short introduction to help you talk it through together.
Read it at your own pace. You can email it, text it, or print it to share.
What Voice Companion is
Voice Companion answers Mum's phone calls when the person she is calling cannot pick up. She hears a familiar voice: the voice of whoever set it up, recorded at home in a few minutes. She dials a number saved in her phone under that person's name, a local number that belongs to your family. Nothing is installed on her side, and any phone works: her mobile, the landline, the big-button one on the hall table.
It never phones her. It only answers when she calls, and only in the hours the family chose, in her time zone. Outside those hours her call rings their own phone, as it always has.
On a call it follows her lead. It never corrects her, never says "you already asked", never invents a memory, never promises to visit. After about five minutes it winds down warmly. Afterwards, whoever set it up can read every call: the time, the length, a short summary, a note on her mood.
What it is not
- It does not take the place of a visit, or of a real call from you.
- It is not a medical device, and it gives no medical advice.
- It does not call 911. If she is upset it stays on the line, becomes gentler, and tells the person your family chose, by text or by phone.
- It never phones her. It only ever answers.
- It never argues with her. If she asks whether it is really her daughter, it does not insist.
What it costs
Standard costs $10 a month and includes $10 of call credit each month. Unused credit rolls over and never expires; calls are 30¢ a minute, so a five-minute call is about $1.50. If the credit runs out, her calls simply ring the family's own phone until someone tops up, any amount from $5 to $500, or sets it to top up on its own. It can be cancelled any time, prices are in CAD in Canada and USD in the United States, and the full picture, including a worked month, is on the pricing page.
Is this right?
The consent is given by whoever sets it up — a daughter, a son, a husband — in plain words, before a single call is answered. Mum is not asked to agree to it. On the call she hears a familiar voice, the voice of whoever recorded it, and she is not told it is a recording; if she asks whether it is really them, it never argues and never insists. It follows her lead and never corrects her, because for a person living with dementia being met with warmth matters more than being set straight, an approach we call Compassionate Validation. Whether that is right for Mum is your family's decision to make together, and the ethics and consent page puts the hardest question first and answers it in full, including what you agree to before calls begin.
What to say to Mum
Whatever your family decides, she will still call you, and you will still call her. The Alzheimer Society of Canada's advice on talking with a person living with dementia is short and kind, and it holds whether the subject is the weather or this page.
- Say who you are at the start, every time. "Mum, it's David." Do not wait for her to work it out.
- One thing at a time. One question, a pause, then the next. Short sentences carry better down a phone line than long ones.
- Do not correct her. If she has the day or the year wrong, let it go. The feeling behind what she says is what she is telling you.
- End warmly, and the same way each time, so that the ending itself becomes something she recognises.
There is no script here that pretends. Whether to tell her about the number in her phone, and how, is yours to decide as a family; the ethics page talks that through, and if you would rather ask a person, call 1-833-686-4231.
Sources
- Alzheimer Society of Canada, Communication: talking with a person living with dementia. alzheimer.ca
- Prices shown in the Voice Companion portal on 14 September 2026: CAD in Canada, USD in the United States.