Mom is 92 with mild cognitive impairment / dementia that has been made worse by 2 recent falls and 3 recent hospitalizations and rehab stays. She is hearing impaired (although not totally deaf) and legally blind (not totally blind).
She moved to a new AL facility and is required to be quarantined to the room for two weeks despite a negative Covid19 test.
She is unable to move around her apartment herself because she is too weak to walk with her walker and too weak to use her feet to shuffle about in her wheelchair.
Staff do not always put her land line phone within reach. A cell phone would be too complicated for her to try to use (and we are afraid she would mistakenly press the emergency button that alerts the local emergency services when trying to call us).
No visits are allowed inside the facility. FaceTime visits are limited. Only one staff member has a business cell phone that she can help Mom use to talk to us so that is limited to the days and times that staff member is working at the facility and when she is not busy doing something else.
Does anyone have any experience with this? Have you found a phone or other product that has helped you? How can we communicate with her regularly and she with us? (I have three siblings and we would all like to talk to her at least daily if not twice daily.)
Thank you in advance for any ideas.
But she is now at a different facility so I think sending cards again is a good idea.
Thank you for your response.
I'm just wondering when you mentioned that Facetime visits are limited do you mean due to the facility needing to share an iPad/iPhone with other residents or because no one is available to help her with it? If it's the former reason could you and your siblings pitch in the money and buy her an iPad? My husband and I bought my 95-year old mother an iPad as soon as her previous AL facility went on lockdown March 13th. I was concerned about not knowing how she was doing and wanted to "see" for myself since her window faced an inner courtyard that I didn't have access to. Since she has moderate to advanced Alzheimer's, I had to take a large piece of white paper and use a big, black sharpie to tell her which way to hold it (I bought a protective case for it), how to answer it and taped it to the front of the case along with her name and room number. She has an old fashioned desk phone that we replaced her cordless phone system with because she was forgetting how to use it but, we sometimes have the same problem you mentioned about it not always being within reach. I finally told the care coordinator that they have to start keeping it right next to her on a consistent basis. She does have her cell phone too but, she started to forget how to use that as well.
I hope you're able to come up with something that you and your siblings can do in order to keep in touch with your mom daily - good luck!
Purchasing an IPad or similar device might be the answer. I’m not sure what she could handle but could write out large instructions as you did. As well as alerting staff that she has one for her own use.
Thank you for your response and suggestion.
As heartbreaking as it is, no matter what, in competition with a dangerous, highly communicable, politically charged, internationally transmitted virus, ultimately, the virus wins.
I’m in an area where the “rights” of some have overwhelmed the rights of the the vulnerable elderly. I am hoping and praying that I’ll be able to grab LO’s hand and share a joke with her before her loss of appetite and general lethargy relate in enough “geriatric decline” to take her.
My heart breaks to think the virus may win, but LO still remembers my name, and that renews my hope.
My Best Wishes and Prayers to ALL OF US who struggle with this harrowing “new normal”.