Uses for dry-erase whiteboards

I feel like the whiteboard is something of a boilerplate accommodation offered to struggling families/caregivers. In addition to all of the reasons @Victoria2020 listed for why they generally don't work, I feel like they aren't what the PWD needs.

IME, sometimes the repeated questions are not so much about gathering information but about having a human connection. As language skills start to slip in dementia's disease progression, the ability to ask for attention and reassurance becomes more difficult to articulate and they're left with only questions. In that context, redirection to a written message seems cruel.

I do know one spousal caregiver who was successful with the white board. He and his wife had a large family and a medical practice together-- they had always maintained a white board for a master schedule for the family as well as one for listing items they'd run out of for shopping. Because this was baked-in muscle memory, his wife continued to look for it and responded to reassurances on it into stage 5-6.

HB

Big fail for us… my FIL could never recognize the need to read or follow.. yet he “reads” books all the time..

@harshedbuzz great point about the repeated questions! Ironically I’ve seen many similarities between my stepdad with dementia and our child with autism and intellectual disability/severely delayed speech. Of course, my child can make forward progress and PWD doesn’t (I don’t want to minimize that). But our child gets into repetitive questioning loops, too, because she wants to connect socially and is otherwise unsure how to generate back and forth conversation. It can definitely be challenging, though, to listen to!

Yes! 'Let's buy the electronic scrolling photo frame to provide an always available photo album.'

Ah. Unplugged. Every time. Foiled by my mother's thrifty, 'Child of the Depression' ways.

The whiteboard was a big fail--it wasn't a previously established familiar action of Mom's to look for one, and she had no short term memory left to learn a new behavior.

Notes + a calendar with checkboxes, + an AM/PM pillbox + an Alzheimer's digital clock, all placed in the bathroom, worked for a little bit, but not long...as others have noted, by the time you're doing these thing it's probably too late for relying on visual cues alone & oversight is needed.

But would be lovely for loving messages if the whiteboard could be put somewhere they'd see.

You're right, Victoria, she did! My Loggins & Messina, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer LPs--all in the trash. 😪

In all seriousness, there was a certain point when my mom started tossing in the trash anything that she did not understand or identify. Slippers I bought her (Who's were they?). Bottles of shampoo (What is this?). Even food. That's probably how the white board met its demise.

I was surprised that the Alzheimer's clock didn't go the same route. Another fail. She couldn't understand what it said. Although sometimes she has moments of clarity. She's currently in late Stage 7 but the other night she looked at the Alzheimer's clock and said "That says it's Friday night at 7:30. Is that true?" Incredible. She hadn't been able to tell the time or day with that for years.

I have a white board in DH’s room where I write the day, date and year in the hope it will help him stay oriented to the calendar. The comments here made me curious so I went into his room, stood right next to the white board, and asked him what day it was. He said nothing, just gave me a blank look.

OK, so white board fail for assisting with date and year! I’ll keep it in there though because I write other things on it…little jokes, funny drawings, notes. I know he sees those occasionally because he will make comments about them.

The white board was a fail for our family member who had memory issues, but it helped the rest of us stay on top of things. We used it for various appointments and specific events. Kept us in line....