Elderly parents and mobile phones - getting them to use or at least call

HooCanTellMee

Hi to all out there, at 58 I am stuck in the middle, fairly computer literate, but don't want to walk around with a mobile glued to my ear. Prefer to trawl the internet on a screen that is larger than a postage stamp! I can also make choices at a supermarket without needing someone to discuss it with.
My MIL is in hospital and it was suggested she used a mobile to contact close relatives who live too far away to visit.
The simplest mobile phone I have seen is the AgeUK one, this gives options for eight numbers, but they are all called by pressing on a pad with the name of the person you want to call. Very bespoke, not going to be able to pass phone on, unless all relatives have the same names. But it is beautifully simple. Owner only has to know name they want to call. No long term contracts, phone may be a little expensive for what it does, but it is nothing like the price of a smart phone.
This won't help with getting anyone to phone at certain times, could you say you get a break in the morning at a certain time, then another in the afternoon. Suggest that a call would be nice to break the boredom of drinking coffee?

Savvy_Sue

Can you not change the names / numbers on the AgeUK phone if anything changes?

DUKE

I can't really advise but we have similar problems with my 75 year old Mom. She'll call in the early hours of the morning to talk about something non urgent. If anything urgent crops up she never rings, but tells us about it later & says that she didn't want to bother us. It drives me mad but there's nothing I can do about it. Old people do tend to worry about everything & anything as they spend long periods of time alone & have nothing else to think about apart from worries. Oh she accuses me of telling lies too as she just can't remember stuff any more.

longforgotten

So much of this thread I can apply to my Mum and me.......

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink

And guess what that phrase can apply to me or Mum !;)

Gigglepig

Lots of the posts on this thread are gone?

I can't find my second one, reply to the lady who posted about facebook? I don't see how it contravened any forum rules, and would appreciate a pm from admin explaining why it is gone.

Torry_Quine

Gigglepig wrote: »

Lots of the posts on this thread are gone?

I can't find my second one, reply to the lady who posted about facebook? I don't see how it contravened any forum rules, and would appreciate a pm from admin explaining why it is gone.

She deleted her posts so yours was presumably deleted as it quoted hers.

margaretclare

DUKE wrote: »

I can't really advise but we have similar problems with my 75 year old Mom. She'll call in the early hours of the morning to talk about something non urgent. If anything urgent crops up she never rings, but tells us about it later & says that she didn't want to bother us. It drives me mad but there's nothing I can do about it. Old people do tend to worry about everything & anything as they spend long periods of time alone & have nothing else to think about apart from worries. Oh she accuses me of telling lies too as she just can't remember stuff any more.

Some (not all) old people do tend to worry about......

Some (not all) spend long periods of time alone....

For someone to phone in the early hours of the morning is not normal, not even at 75. There's something wrong.

My late MIL used to accuse me of lying, of theft, of not being the woman her son married, a whole lot of stuff like that. But she was an Alzheimer's sufferer.

Gigglepig

Torry_Quine wrote: »

She deleted her posts so yours was presumably deleted as it quoted hers.

Ah... Guess she didn't like all the posts from people thinking she was in the wrong...

Spendless

Can be an age/generation thing. My Grandmothers would be exactly the same. My Mum can make and receive a mobile phone call and read a text but not send one. My Dad is better, but my sister was pulling her hair out with him yesterday as he is sending me and her texts from holiday abroad which is costing him, whereas she explained how to send a free e-mail instead, but he hasn't done. Meanwhile my 10 year old thinks I am the most hopeless case of being technology phobic that she's ever come across and can manage to do stuff to the computer, that her Dad (who works in IT!) hasn't the foggiest how she's managed it!

I'd go for a multi pronged solution based on several of the answers here. Put your landline and your mobile phone on speed dial numbers for him. Always ring him during your lunch-break, and again as you leave the office for your commute home.

Savvy_Sue

Spendless wrote: »

Always ring him during your lunch-break, and again as you leave the office for your commute home.

Actually, I'd say this could be a bit OTT unless there's a NEED to speak to someone twice a day. Might be better not to have set times (except perhaps in the OP's own mind) when he will start to worry if you haven't rung ...

Example, MIL phones us every Sunday evening. It used to be 9.30 pm on the dot, and if she hadn't rung by 10 pm we'd worry and phone her (obviously). Now she's got a bit more relaxed and it's often a bit later, she knows we keep late hours. But if she hasn't rung on Sunday evening, and it's a bit late before we realise, we will ring her the next day. She's not on her own, so it's unlikely anything will be wrong.

And fortunately she doesn't worry if we forget and go out on a Sunday night without phoning her to say we're out!

Whereas, if the OP starts ringing twice a day, and then misses one for some reason, Dad's mind may go into overdrive ...

A call at different times 2 or 3 times a week might do the trick.