Phone Solutions for People with Dementia

In today’s post, when phones become a problem, technology saves the day!

The Phone Issue

My dad was the principal broker of a real estate agency, and his cell phone ran his life. 

When his official diagnosis came, that was it. He essentially retired the same day and stopped going into the office where he worked for 40+ years.

This happened in 2021, at the same time my family and I took a cross country road trip to visit my parents for the summer. The day we pulled into their driveway also happened to be the first day of his retirement.

There we were at home together all day, for the next couple of months: me, my husband, our 2 and 4 year olds, and my dad, who now had to figure out what to do with himself at home. He didn’t really understand why he wasn’t going into work anymore. We’d find him by the front door by 8 in the morning, suit and tie on, looking for his car keys (which we had hidden). 

My mom would head off to work, and I would explain to him, “The doctors say you should stay at home,” or “you’re home so you can spend more time with us.” While he didn’t put up much of a fight, he was clearly confused.

Without warning or consent, my dad was thrust into retirement, and living with a brain disease. That’s when phones became a problem.

The Landline

The landline was the biggest issue. During the day, 99% of the calls coming into my parents’ home phone were marketers and scammers. And my poor dad, so eager to talk to anyone about anything business-y would rush to the phone every time it rang, happy to chat and give out his information to whomever was on the other line. 

I was watching him, and he knew it. One time I caught him in the pantry on the phone, the coiled cord giving him away, reading his credit card number into the phone.

Before our situation turned into the beginning of The BeeKeeper we found a solution.⚭ We silenced all of the landline phones in the house. Why this worked for us...

• Without the ringing, he was no longer prompted to pick up all of those junk calls coming in.

• He could still use the landline to call out whenever he wanted.

• He was never alone at home, so if he needed help calling someone from either the landline or a cell, we were there to assist.

• At this time he was still fairly good at using (and not losing) his cell phone, so if any of his friends or family wanted to get in touch with him, they still could. 

I realize this solution won’t work for everyone. If someone with dementia is home alone often or if the landline is your only way to reach your loved one, then you may want to keep that ringer on.

An alternative solution to silencing the phone is using a service like TeleCalm which filters calls, stops repeat calling and can be managed remotely by caregivers.⚭ While I don’t have personal experience with this service, it gets positive reviews on Reddit.

The Cell Phone

By the end of that summer, my mom and I had decided it wasn’t safe for my dad to be at home by himself. We hired wonderful at-home caregivers to be with him during the day while my mom was at work. He was in good hands and almost never alone, so if we wanted to get in touch with him, we just called one of his caregivers. 

He used his own cell less and less, then lost it a few times, and at some point my mom just put it in a drawer and left it there. I would have loved for him to be able to use it for longer - to call or Facetime me or other family and friends. Perhaps if we had made his phone easier for him to navigate, he would/could have? Maybe not, but I wish I had at least tried. 

I’ve since discovered that many cell phones have settings and hacks that make them easier to use for people with cognitive disabilities. Here are links to some good tutorials I found to engage these settings on some of the most popular phones.

Making an existing cell easier to use

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