Which? Elderly Care
Jo’s mother is 95 and lives in her own home. She has dementia so Jo has looked into various forms of assistive technology for reassurance that her mother is OK.
“My mum is physically frail, but the real issue is that she has dementia and has been slowly declining over the last two or three years. I pay for carers to go in once a day and I phone her every morning to make sure she has taken her tablets and is OK, and then again each evening to check that she has eaten something.
But Mum can’t use the phone very easily. The only way I can get her to manage is by having a phone that doesn’t switch to answerphone because it has to ring long enough for her to hear it, get to it and work out which button to press.
Walkabout phone problems
We’ve got one static phone by the bed and three walkabout phones around the house, so Mum doesn’t have to walk far to answer it. She has to have a walkabout phone because I need to find out which room she is in and then tell her where to go take her pills or have her meal. But she struggles to push the buttons and I can’t find a walkabout phone without an answerphone with very simple big buttons.
Another problem is telesales people calling her to sell things - it seems charities are exempt from registering with preference services. A telephone system that limits the incoming calls has loads of features you don’t need and don’t want and that my mother couldn’t use anyway. Then she often doesn’t put the handset down on its stand, so the line doesn’t disconnect and she can’t hear the warning noise down the line. It doesn’t help that she frequently unplugs everything as well!