Trying to figure out what to do with my mom’s phone. Can I add a dial phone?
My mom has a memory care phone, even though she has not been diagnosed with dementia. She is in an assisted living facility and had a flip phone when she arrived, but lost it while in the home.
To help manage inbound calls, as my mom is not terribly good with technology, I found a raz mobility memory care phone, which only accepts calls from contacts or whitelisted numbers. This has generally been great, but my mom has been asking for a dial pad to make outbound calls.
Part of me wants to enable them, but worries she will call for cab rides and setup appointments without regard for the caregiving staff to ensure she has a ride etc for the appointment. Mom has previously managed to take a cab ride out and about without knowing how she might get home again and I worry easier access to a phone will be a problem.
I'm not sure what to do here, I'd like her to have some agency, but worry she will make things overall more difficult. Is there any harm really in adding a dial pad to her phone?
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But he was sending photos of himself from his hospital bed to business contacts. Texting people various letters of the alphabet. Texting me links to animal videos. Signing up for and and canceling things.
We got a landline and the phone huge photos of family members. He didn't use it.
I even bought him an old (but new) typewriter, thinking it would help. He didn't touch it.
Finally I had to accept that this time in his life had come and gone. It was distressing and heartbreaking.
Eventually he found other ways to occupy his time--videos on youtube, jotting down scribbly notes in a notebook. His mind continued to decline.
It is so sad, this change, this discontinuation of what once was. I wish I could send a more positive message, but this is what happened in our family.
She also got into the habit of incessantly calling customer service numbers when she forgot how to work certain appliances, then expectin me to do the returns. Every once is a while she'll ask me to activate the keypad so she can "call her doctor". Nope, I'm her MPoA and all she does in the middle is cause chaos.
I think you already know the answer to your question. No to the keypad. Make up some therapeutic fib to tell your Mom: "This model doesn't have that feature" or something you know she may accept. Otherwise as others have suggested, just distract her or change the subject. Sometimes when my Mom goes off on a rant about it, I literally just walk out of the room.
Don't give in. Trust me, you'll regret it.
You have made a compelling argument against allowing her this freedom. You seem to know what to anticipate will happen if she can freely make calls.
Mom is in an assisted living facility. She is not living independently. You are taking steps to keep her safe, and that includes making difficult decisions for her safety.
Forcing her to enlist someone else's help in making appointments and arrange outings is not too much burden to place on her.
If she does find herself out in the world without knowing how to get home, tell her to call a family member. Make sure she also has the phone number for the assisted living facility where she resides programmed into her phone.
Adding Doctors presents the issue of not sharing appointments with staff if she were to call for herself and then no ride being available/scheduled or scheduling things, not telling facility staff and just taking off when the ride appears.
Maybe I am thinking wrong about this, but conversations about some things and what they cost, gives me pause - it’s like everything is still at the same cost as before her issue, when some costs, to my knowledge have never been what she claims they are. I’m trying hard to reduce arguments, but do not want things to get exponentially worse / harder.
As much as I want to just light up the dial pad, having seen how phone use has gone in the past (before this phone) I am skeptical that its a good idea.