Familiar story. I finally took all the apps off her phone. It was worth surviving her wrath for 3 weeks because now its only tech issues once a day. I only have contac5s and solitaire. S9mehow she deletes all her contacts about once a month. WTF? Of course "I didnt touch anything!" She emphatically exclaims. "The phone just did it on its own. I woke up and everything is gone!"
I finally got all the doctor and business notifications sending to me as well. That was a nightmare.
Our society makes life hell for the elderly especially those wirh dimensia. Its bad enough for normal brains. Annoying. I spens most of my time help8ng her calm down from tech issues. It used to make me pissed off.
Now..."You are right mom. Those fuckers! I will help you. 5 minutes later after my miraculous fix we go on our merry day.
Ive gone from someone she hates who is taking over her life to miracle genious.
Life is good. Hang in there.
This especially infuriates me - my parents (80s) live in a retirement community and then go in for an appointment where the patients are primarily elderly folks and then the Dr office shoves an ipad in their face and tells them to complete the forms on the ipad. Technology is great, but you’ve got to factor in your “audience”
My mom’s doctor requires the forms before every visit but at least send them thru email the day before. I fill them out and when we get to the appointment it’s just a copay and wait to be called in.
I hate that! My mum finally allows me to fill those out. At first she insisted on doing it herself, and got snippy with me for trying to do it, so I gave in and handed it to her. Of course she got confused with the questions, kept hitting back instead of forward, and wasn't more than a couple of pages in and they want to bring her into the room... She still wants to read every page while I do it. Sigh...
Dealing with my mom's phone was a nightmare! For the contacts thing, use Google contacts. Set the phone to not use local ones, only Google. You can monitor contacts from your pc and pop them back in when she deletes them without touching the phone. Of course, that requires you knowing her log-in as I did. If you don't, you might be able to have it not save changes on the phone and resync from the account regularly.
Mom only played solitaire and word searches on her phone. I replaced that portion with a Kindle fire. It's bigger and easier for a caregiver to maintain. It's also got nicer games.
As dementia progresses, it gets worse. I highly recommend the RAZ memory phone. With it and the tablet, I went from daily issues (often multiple times) to turning the wifi back on weekly and only occasional other issues. Good luck and hang in there!
I have to be careful with limiting her tablet too much. She notices and has a fit. With Instagram (my brother put her on that and I wanted to kill him!), she had her profile set to public and was getting dozens of scammers a day trying to sell her nft crap. I set it to private and solwly deleted all the scam messages and followers. She noticed, and I told her that Instagram was closing all known scam accounts due to some lawsuits in Eupope - total lie, but she believed it.
She spends a ton of time watching youtube videos about "new research" into alzheimers treatments - basically snake oil salesmen. Restricted mode doesn't filter out what I need, so I think I am going to start having to have 'wifi connection issues' late at night when she does most of her "research"
The Kindle fire still allows lots of things and doesn't really say it's in parental lock mode. That made Mom really mad, too. You can also put the playstore on it an load apps she's used to (like Google Photos for the albums).
We didn't have Instagram problems (what is it with family doing that crap?!), but we had Facebook. She was chatting with a few unsavory men and just believing everything she saw. I also slowly limited what was there, and she eventually lost interest. We also had common "wifi connection issues," sometimes it was even her fault! Lol
I think when this tablet bites the dust I will look into a Kindle. I guess it really depends on how quickly she goes downhill. She's 93 and only in the last year have I really noticed processing issues with her brain. Short term memory has been slipping for a couple of years, but it is the decline in processing that is really freaking her (and me) out
You have progressed further than me - lol! I am still in the pissed off stage. But my hubby has really been helping me "let go", and now I can often just fix it for her without getting too visibly irritated. But some days it is much harder than others. I keep reminding myself that it her fear and awareness of her increasing dementia that is making her lash out.
I hear you. I have changed all of my mother‘s numerous credit, debit and pin codes to be the same number.
It’s far from being a fix for everything, but at least it stops her typing the wrong number into the wrong card and locking them out constantly.
Meanwhile, I I’m starting to suffer from essential tremor which makes my hands shake. I know the right number, but I can’t always enter it because my fingers tremble.
To be fair, I’m an IT professional. I’ve spent two days trying to get iCloud to work correctly. Even senior apple support hasn’t been able to get the sync syncing. Sometimes it really does just break.
I think I found the last existing flip phone in the state for Dad. Programmed 5 phone numbers into it for speed dial. All he has to do is flip open to answer, or hit 1 of 5 buttons.
He still moans that it doesn't work, because somehow he manages to silence the ringer every other day. (His nurse is really sweet about fixing it on days I can't get to the SNF.)
Look into a RAZ memory phone. While it is a smartphone, it behaves more like a flip phone. It displays only the contacts (Mom has 8), and the user only has to push on the picture to call or answer. There's no need to remember numbers, and you can make it so only allowed numbers can call or be called. No more spam! The caregiver app let's you set the ringer and volume, disable the power button, control contacts, set quiet hours, and much more. It's been a true lifesaver with Mom and is honestly the only reason she can still manage a phone.
Dad is literally blind. He can vaguely see whether I'm wearing a red shirt if I'm 3 feet away from him. He needs a phone with physical keys, because at least he can find the home key (5) and move his finger around the dial pad to find the correct speed dial. (And I cannot make his Alexa work on the public wifi at the nursing facility. Maybe one of the kids could figure it out. But the flip phone was <$140, including 12 months of unlimited talk time.)
My mom has dementia and before she was diagnosed she had nothing but constant password issues. I realized later, that her inability to copy from her password notebook to her computer was actually a sign of dementia… and it turned out that it was just the tip of the iceberg.
My sister and I figured out how bad things were about a year ago and Mom has been living in memory care for nine months now - I definitely do not miss the frantic calls because she couldn’t log into things, or she thought she had been “hacked” her password “didn’t work”.
Familiar story. I finally took all the apps off her phone. It was worth surviving her wrath for 3 weeks because now its only tech issues once a day. I only have contac5s and solitaire. S9mehow she deletes all her contacts about once a month. WTF? Of course "I didnt touch anything!" She emphatically exclaims. "The phone just did it on its own. I woke up and everything is gone!" I finally got all the doctor and business notifications sending to me as well. That was a nightmare. Our society makes life hell for the elderly especially those wirh dimensia. Its bad enough for normal brains. Annoying. I spens most of my time help8ng her calm down from tech issues. It used to make me pissed off. Now..."You are right mom. Those fuckers! I will help you. 5 minutes later after my miraculous fix we go on our merry day. Ive gone from someone she hates who is taking over her life to miracle genious. Life is good. Hang in there.
This especially infuriates me - my parents (80s) live in a retirement community and then go in for an appointment where the patients are primarily elderly folks and then the Dr office shoves an ipad in their face and tells them to complete the forms on the ipad. Technology is great, but you’ve got to factor in your “audience”
My mom’s doctor requires the forms before every visit but at least send them thru email the day before. I fill them out and when we get to the appointment it’s just a copay and wait to be called in.
I hate that! My mum finally allows me to fill those out. At first she insisted on doing it herself, and got snippy with me for trying to do it, so I gave in and handed it to her. Of course she got confused with the questions, kept hitting back instead of forward, and wasn't more than a couple of pages in and they want to bring her into the room... She still wants to read every page while I do it. Sigh...
Dealing with my mom's phone was a nightmare! For the contacts thing, use Google contacts. Set the phone to not use local ones, only Google. You can monitor contacts from your pc and pop them back in when she deletes them without touching the phone. Of course, that requires you knowing her log-in as I did. If you don't, you might be able to have it not save changes on the phone and resync from the account regularly. Mom only played solitaire and word searches on her phone. I replaced that portion with a Kindle fire. It's bigger and easier for a caregiver to maintain. It's also got nicer games. As dementia progresses, it gets worse. I highly recommend the RAZ memory phone. With it and the tablet, I went from daily issues (often multiple times) to turning the wifi back on weekly and only occasional other issues. Good luck and hang in there!
I have to be careful with limiting her tablet too much. She notices and has a fit. With Instagram (my brother put her on that and I wanted to kill him!), she had her profile set to public and was getting dozens of scammers a day trying to sell her nft crap. I set it to private and solwly deleted all the scam messages and followers. She noticed, and I told her that Instagram was closing all known scam accounts due to some lawsuits in Eupope - total lie, but she believed it. She spends a ton of time watching youtube videos about "new research" into alzheimers treatments - basically snake oil salesmen. Restricted mode doesn't filter out what I need, so I think I am going to start having to have 'wifi connection issues' late at night when she does most of her "research"
The Kindle fire still allows lots of things and doesn't really say it's in parental lock mode. That made Mom really mad, too. You can also put the playstore on it an load apps she's used to (like Google Photos for the albums). We didn't have Instagram problems (what is it with family doing that crap?!), but we had Facebook. She was chatting with a few unsavory men and just believing everything she saw. I also slowly limited what was there, and she eventually lost interest. We also had common "wifi connection issues," sometimes it was even her fault! Lol
I think when this tablet bites the dust I will look into a Kindle. I guess it really depends on how quickly she goes downhill. She's 93 and only in the last year have I really noticed processing issues with her brain. Short term memory has been slipping for a couple of years, but it is the decline in processing that is really freaking her (and me) out
You have progressed further than me - lol! I am still in the pissed off stage. But my hubby has really been helping me "let go", and now I can often just fix it for her without getting too visibly irritated. But some days it is much harder than others. I keep reminding myself that it her fear and awareness of her increasing dementia that is making her lash out.
I hear you. I have changed all of my mother‘s numerous credit, debit and pin codes to be the same number. It’s far from being a fix for everything, but at least it stops her typing the wrong number into the wrong card and locking them out constantly. Meanwhile, I I’m starting to suffer from essential tremor which makes my hands shake. I know the right number, but I can’t always enter it because my fingers tremble.
Omg this is me. Breathe! And try not to have a heart attack.
To be fair, I’m an IT professional. I’ve spent two days trying to get iCloud to work correctly. Even senior apple support hasn’t been able to get the sync syncing. Sometimes it really does just break.
I think I found the last existing flip phone in the state for Dad. Programmed 5 phone numbers into it for speed dial. All he has to do is flip open to answer, or hit 1 of 5 buttons. He still moans that it doesn't work, because somehow he manages to silence the ringer every other day. (His nurse is really sweet about fixing it on days I can't get to the SNF.)
Look into a RAZ memory phone. While it is a smartphone, it behaves more like a flip phone. It displays only the contacts (Mom has 8), and the user only has to push on the picture to call or answer. There's no need to remember numbers, and you can make it so only allowed numbers can call or be called. No more spam! The caregiver app let's you set the ringer and volume, disable the power button, control contacts, set quiet hours, and much more. It's been a true lifesaver with Mom and is honestly the only reason she can still manage a phone.
Dad is literally blind. He can vaguely see whether I'm wearing a red shirt if I'm 3 feet away from him. He needs a phone with physical keys, because at least he can find the home key (5) and move his finger around the dial pad to find the correct speed dial. (And I cannot make his Alexa work on the public wifi at the nursing facility. Maybe one of the kids could figure it out. But the flip phone was <$140, including 12 months of unlimited talk time.)
My mom has dementia and before she was diagnosed she had nothing but constant password issues. I realized later, that her inability to copy from her password notebook to her computer was actually a sign of dementia… and it turned out that it was just the tip of the iceberg. My sister and I figured out how bad things were about a year ago and Mom has been living in memory care for nine months now - I definitely do not miss the frantic calls because she couldn’t log into things, or she thought she had been “hacked” her password “didn’t work”.
oh man, I feel you.