David Troxel’s approach to caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease has some simple guidelines: be a “best friend” and develop a knack for handling difficult situations without confrontation.

He says it’s important to avoid arguments with people with dementia because you can’t win. He advises caregivers to be crafty and, if the truth doesn’t work, to use white lies on someone who can’t reason for themselves.

“You need to be acting with integrity, but also acting in the best interests of the person who may not be legally competent anymore,” said Troxel, chief executive officer of the California Central Coast Alzheimer’s Assn.

Caregivers must employ creative strategies to make life easier for both themselves and their loved ones. And the solution generally is not in making someone with dementia feel incapable or dependent.

“People with Alzheimer’s often still have a need to be productive and helpful,” Troxel said. The trick is to make them believe it’s true even if it’s not.

Troxel and Virginia Bell, who worked together with families at the University of Kentucky’s Alzheimer Disease Research Center starting in 1986, developed there the “Best Friends Approach” to Alzheimer’s care. They’ve described it in three books. The newest one, “A Dignified Life” (Health Communications Inc., $12.95), is aimed at family caregivers.

The authors offer optimism that the joy of life doesn’t have to end — for victim or caregiver — just because of the strains that accompany a person’s loss of memory and other abilities.

“A remarkable number of caregivers have told me that when Mother gets Alzheimer’s and her memories disappear, they’ve started the relationship over again where the old family feuds and slights disappear,” Troxel said.

He said the best friends approach grew out of an adult day-care program where harassed family members dropped off relatives whom they considered “impossible.”

“What we discovered was people with dementia would respond to an atmosphere of joy, security and friendship, and they could be on their best behavior for six or eight hours a day retaining so many of their old social graces and manners,” Troxel said. “We can impact how the person with Alzheimer’s behaves and how they feel. It doesn’t necessarily stop the disease, but we can help them work at their best.”