That almost never works, and it can frighten them, and set them back.

What can help is gentler and less direct.

A song she once knew.

A smell from her kitchen.

A place her body remembers even if her mind does not.

Some ordinary sensory thing may open a door that no amount of trying ever could.

Surround her with her old life, softly, and then be patient, and let it happen on its own.” I heard the word patient and felt something in me resist it.

I had waited twenty years.