Advice about phone use

Momof02sfcnp · October 2023

Hi all. I'm new here. My mom has Alzheimers and has been living with us for the last 1 1/2 years. She is not able to live alone nor drive; she tends to her own personal hygiene needs - but otherwise is dependent on us for all other day to day needs. As we would expect, we have experienced a progressive decline. Our biggest concern is safety with socializing. We have had to put signs up for her not to answer the front door; as a few months ago she began to share her contact info with a stranger and offer to sign a document for them - thankfully my son intervened before anything major was shared. Now with her phone - we are finding that she is experiencing increased diffiulty with its use, finding her in various parts of her phone settings / apps / websites she shouldn't be in; let alone a new spanish version or add of FB that is now popping up. She frequently completes the FB surverys that we know are scams / profiling. She cannot accurately report her day to day with those on the phone and cannot accurately recall their conversation. She has had one person removed from her social circle,including phone conversations, due to being taken advantage by her. We have provide her the opportunity to speak on the phone, when someone is present - again for her safety. But otherwise we discourage her making calls when we are not around. I think it is time to transition to something that is safer for her - like games only - no phone call /social media access.

I realize this is personal preference and there may be many opinions. But I would appreciate some guidance and support. So, is it time to remove the phone?

Thanks

terei · October 2023

I would have the phone ‘break’ + remove it. You can tell her you are having it ‘fixed’. There will be delays to get parts. Sooner or later, she will get used to not having it.

harshedbuzz · October 2023

Depending on the app, she may not need service to playgames. I have plenty of friends who have passed their own old phones down to a preschooler for games.

Airplane mode and a change of WiFi password would help as well.

dancsfo · October 2023

@Momof02sfcnp it seems that your mom can't use the phone effectively for calls or for app usage.

The only reason I would still consider a smart phone useful is that it may offer a way to track your mom's location just in case she wanders, for emergencies, and you do not have some other way to track her location. But if she has a caregiver alongside most of the time, that may not be 100% necessary.

There is a special assistive access mode on iPhone for those with cognitive disabilities that may be a compromise. You can limit it to receive calls from, or make calls to selected numbers (like your numbers)

For Android there are special phones you can buy for seniors (see Wirecutter link below)

https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/about-assistive-access-iphb86e84e2b/ios

If she wants just games, you can use an old phone with no calling capability (if one can learn how to use it, if it's a different type), or maybe something like a portable game machine, like a Nintendo Switch. But you do have to teach your mom something new, and it may be hard.

If she finds comfort and joy with a connection to her social circle using her phone, then removing that may take away some joy from her life, and it may upset her. If there's anyway for her to scroll through some postings in a "read-only" mode, but not be logged in, that may be a compromise solution, but I think it will be tricky to do it since so many apps or sites require a login.

Also, see the New York Times' Wirecutter review of options:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-cell-phones-for-older-adults/

Cindy Ohana · October 2023

We had this same issue and concern with my mom. We bought her the senior cell phone with picture dialing from the Alzheimer’s store. This limits her calls to incoming and outgoing and only to those you have allowed. It also has GPS on the phone so if she walks out of the house without us knowing, we can track her, but only if she took her phone with her. It does not have texting, which is another reason we wanted to get her this phone. Hope this helps. It’s one less thing we need to worry about with her.

Jasonvonkrueger · November 2023

We''re facing the same thing but for a different reason. My mom ends up blowing up everyone's phones all day long. We made the mistake of telling her we were thinking about taking the phone and that didn't go over well.

We all have iPhones so I can't speak for Android phones or anything else. One really cool thing with iPhones is that you can setup Shortcuts to do various things and have those as widgets on her Home Screen. You can hide many/most of the other app icons and just have the shortcuts. You could have a shortcut that she presses that will send you and/or others her location. Of course shortcuts can be contacts for calling as well...on top of that, I'm thinking there's probably a way to require a delay before repeating a call. I just now thought of that and will be trying it tomorrow. Thanks for the idea. :)

Point is, if she has an iPhone, you could do things to it now that can help with some of those problems. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

dancsfo · November 2023

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/187501#Comment_187501

Are you saying: "If I had called person X in the last Y hours, then disallow calling person X until some timer expires"? That may be okay, except for these scenarios

1) emergencies: when you do want to allow calls and bypass the repeat restriction

2) a gentle nudge rather than a strict disallow. Say "you already called X at this time, so you are really sure?" But your mom may forget she called and get frustrated: "But I didn't call X earlier today and I still want to talk to X"

3) A call got dropped so calling to resume my conversation, but it won't let her!

So it gets complicated!

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