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He has Lewy Body, and his ability to work things like the telephone, computer, and TV is impaired. TV is his life! He doesn't remember what's on what channel, and if he does know a channel, can't figure out how to key it in. He sits in his chair and uses the arrow on the remote from one channel to the next, but seldom stops to watch a show. He will play with the remote until he gets someplace where he needs to make a choice, and then calls me to fix it. Today he did something to completely lose the picture, and anything I tried to do to fix it didn't work. I had to call support. I know it will only get worse. Any suggestions?

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I had issues with the remote when my cousin got dementia. She loved her tv and was quite obsessed with watching certain shows, however, she lost the ability to operate the remote or the tv. I had to place the tv on a channel that she was familiar with the shows and take the remote away. She watched that channel all the time, but it didn't bother her, because she would forget what she just saw minutes earlier.

I had to secure any type of gadget away from her because she would get confused, mess it up and freak out that it wouldn't work right. IMO, there is no way to prevent him from playing with the remote and asking you to help him. You could put one station on and when he asked for the remote, tell him it's broken. You can say it will be repaired sometime soon....and then never bring it up again. Later on, he may have no interest in the remote.

I did find my cousin a very basic remote that only had on/off, channel up/down, volume up/down, but she struggled with that soon thereafter and then just stopped using it. She was not able to figure out what the remote was for and even lost interest in watching tv.
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I agree with Sunnygirl above, remove the remote... or take out the batteries. Most flat screen TV's still have on/off volume and channel buttons on the TV itself... one usually needs to hunt for them. If the buttons aren't on the front, then check the sides of the TV. Maybe hubby will get tired of getting up to change the stations, etc. and settle into watching one station.

I know what you mean when the wrong buttons are pushed and you can't get a picture. That could happen to any one of us. Give me the old fashioned TV's where there are knobs to turn :) Of course, if one has cable, that would be one heck of a huge knob to get all those stations :P
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You can operate the tv manually, as freqflyer says above, but I might do that when he is not looking, so he doesn't pick up on it. If he knows the controls are on the tv, he may obsess and fiddle with them until he breaks them. My cousin would fiddle with anything such as thermostat, alarm, remote, clock, cable box, etc. I had to remove all these things (installed lock box on AC/Heat thermostat) or she would obsess with them and then have a meltdown. She could not understand why they were not working properly and she was able to understand that she no longer had the ability to use the items.
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Correction to above. She was NOT able to understand that she no longer had the ability to use the items.
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