Best Cell Phone for LO

CStrope

We recently switched cell phone carriers for our family, and are trying to decide the best device for my DH to use.  With his old phone, (IPhone 7), he did manage to answer a call, (50% of the time), but seldom if ever placed a call on his own.  When he did, it was to just hit the last number that was on the call list.  

Even though he doesn't use the phone much, he does enjoy facetime calls from our daughter, and from a few of his long distance friends that still contact him.

I've considered if an IPad would be better?  Does anyone else have suggestions?  I have a wrist tracker/phone, but he is not able to do facetime on it.  

Jella417

Good question so I will be looking for responses. My DH is in ES so still uses his iPhone but is getting confused. Cannot tell the difference between emailing and texts. He’ll email me questions like what I want for dinner. Plus he loses it all the time and only responds to me half the time now. 

So I am looking ahead and wondering if a simpler phone would be better in the future or if maybe even simple will be impossible and I’ll need to install a home phone so at least I can call him and maybe he’ll answer. 

Quilting brings calm

My Mom is still using an  iPhone SE.   She often accidentally calls me, or hangs up on me, or puts me on mute.  I think I’m the only one she calls. She may or may not answer the phone when I call- I think she gets the ringer silenced by accident too.  She has trouble texting. I can help her with phone issues because I also have an iPhone SE. 

 My step-dad has a flip phone.  I find that a lot more difficult to use than an iPhone, due to the difficulty of using the menu area to find contacts, recent callers, etc.  I hate trying to help him. 

I really thought my mom would be done with the phone by now, but she seems fairly stable at what she can and can’t do with it.  If I could just get both of them to stop answering calls from numbers not in their contact list. 

Ed1937

If you do a Google search for "dementia phone", you will get several hits. I'm not sure if they are good for facetime, but you can check them out. There are several different models available.

Jo C.

Ed is right; if you use Mr. Google, you will find an array of such cell phones. One; the "Raz," does not have numbers, but instead has photos of family members. In that instance, no numbers are needed, the person just presses the photo of the person that they want to call and the call is made.

It gets to the point that our LOs can no longer process texting, it is too much to not only remember or being able to process the technical dynamics of the phone, the pwd must also remember how to retrieve and spell the words and sometimes will have difficult in even remembering what they wish to communicate.

In any such phone, the pwd will often forget to charge the phone or not know or comprehend that the phone even needs to be charged, so the caregiver then becomes the person to keep a check on that.

In our state, California, there are free phones for those who have special needs.  Really some good phones.  Anyone with a LO with such issues may want to check their state online to see if that is an available benefit. 

J.

Rick4407

If you want to stop your LO from answering unknown callers, you can on an iPhone SE.  Only callers in the contacts list will ring. Others will go to voice mails.

Settings - Phone - Silence Unknown Callers

I use it to block unwanted calls, political, sales, charity, etc.  Legitimate callers will usually leave a message.  When I get a message I return the call and add the person to my contact list.

Quilting brings calm

Rick - thank you for that tip.  Next time I see her, I will turn that setting on.

GothicGremlin

I was just coming over to post what Rick posted.

My sister Peggy is early onset too, and also had an iPhone ... higher than 7, no higher than 10 - can't remember which it was. She would randomly call people in her contacts list, or she'd pocket dial them (and me). She used that phone until just after we moved her into memory care.

We researched the dementia phones, including the Raz. We opted not to get one because we thought that even those might be too difficult for her to use. If I had discovered the dementia phones while she was still in earlier stage 5, I probably would have bought one for her.

Eventually what we did with her iPhone was to get rid of the browser (no shopping!), email, and all of the extraneous apps. She had so many apps that would ping her - like earthquakes anywhere in the world, fires in the greater bay area - she just didn't need that. We also got rid of facebook. We did exactly what Rick did with unknown callers. It worked pretty well for her until earlier stage 6.

CStrope

Thanks everyone.  I was really hoping there was something simple that would allow him to still facetime with our daughter.  She usually calls him from the dog park and shows him all of the dogs playing and running around.  Dogs seem to be his favorite thing in the whole world!

MaryG123

I like your idea of the iPad.  My DH uses one and it works better for him than a phone.  Some companies will have an iPad like device for seniors that you can add onto your phone service.

Like this Grand Pad from Consumer Cellular. https://www.consumercellular.com/shopping/details/grandpad/overview

JoseyWales

I went super cheap when DH got to this point. I got a android tracfone fairly cheap off  QVC. He could have gone online, he could have answered calls.... but he didn't. I let the phone expire after a short time, but he still carried it around and could go online at home - but he didn't. He just liked being able to carry it around.