My father has had a mobile phone for many years, but also had a land line in his home. We moved him to AL & now he has only a cell phone. He has macular degeneration which makes it hard for him to see the screen, and he kept insisting there was something wrong with the phone (there wasn't - he just kept hitting the wrong buttons).
We bought him a phone that supposedly is designed for elderly folks. Now he's having more trouble than ever! He will NOT leave it alone & use it for phone calls only. Due to his poor vision, he can't see how to correct his mistakes. Has anyone found a mobile phone that has worked well with the elderly? I'm ready to throw his phone out the window!
Will the facility allow landlines? If so, find a phone as close to the old ones you can. You pick up, u put down. I got one for Mom when she was here.
The phone will start by asking him stupid questions and making smart-arsed remarks back at him - "I didn't understand that" - "Are you ready to send your message?" [What! What message?? NO!!!] - "I can't find that number" - and so on - but with only an hour or two's use it should begin to understand his voice and recognise names better.
It was really the simplest thing in the world. You program a name and number and then they are assigned a letter she just had to touch. My name starts with a B and she did not once successfully call me in the 3-4 years she had this thing.
She WANTED her landline back, brother would not allow it. It cost $9 a month to add it to the internet provider, but brother is a bit of a control freak and he wouldn't change back to landlines.
I tried to help, but just got a tongue lashing from YB and it honestly isn't worth it.
I don't know many over 90's who can successfully navigate a cell phone. And now she's back to her tiny original flip phone which she loses on a regular basis.
Not my problem, if it were, she's have a landline phone in every room of her apartment, Just one more way for YB to control her. Sad.
Oh, and she gets plenty of scammers on her cell phone, which just upset her to death. She doesn't 'get it' that these are cold calls and she needs to simply hang up. She gets wound up and worried. Luckily she so rarely answers her phone it hasn't become too much of a problem, yet.
This issue comes up a lot and folks may have some good ideas for various devices but in my case and possibly yours, we get to the point where nothing much works.
When I finally got my folks in assisted living I did not have a phone hooked up in their room. They had a fit but that would have been my whole life, trying to straighten out daily phone nightmares, scammers etc.