Old smart phone was literally falling apart so had to be replaced. Bought a Lively smart phone (used to be Jitterbug). Of course, duh, she is having issues using it!!! It's not "hard" but to her it is. I left her a very detailed note on exactly what to do, better than my previous notes and have been making her practice numerous times, hoping muscle memory will start kicking in.
Wondering if I should switch to the Lively flip phone? She used to have a flip phone, probably at least 10 years ago.
99% of her needs are just phone calls. Texts and pictures are nice too but does not go on the internet.
I have to set up and try the google voice assistant too. I didn't have her passwords with me but that's also on my list of things to try.
OMG I hate dementia!!!
She literally SOMEHOW called a friend back that had called her, crying, telling her that she was trying to call ME. Yikes. I felt bad for her friend. And for mom too, of course. And she called my sister repeatedly. But really wanted to call me.
She has used an iPad for years to play solitaire--we use that to facetime her. Every once in a while she gets to fiddling with it and manages to call me by selecting the last phone number used, but otherwise she doesn't place outgoing phone calls. I bought her a plain push button phone for her room as well, but she doesn't use it . I'll note here that her slowly stopping her phone calls to us kids was probably dementia creep, but we didn't realise it at the time.
You might be able to replace the old phone with an exact replica and she could try to use it for a little bit, but that will eventually not work either.
I've heard good things about the Amazon shows, where you can call them.
In my mom's nursing home, I called their main desk, asked to talk to my mom, and they brought her the phone. Eventually she'd just put it down somewhere (never learned to hang it up or end a call), and they'd find it for the next person. She had absolutely no context to use a cell phone of any kind, as she never had one before dementia.
Come to think of it, she never even had a microwave -- too complicated, and she was sure she would "crash" it like a computer. (Yeah, not a thing, but try to convince her of that!)
I should have known what I was getting into when I noticed the Instruction Book was 150 pages long :P Hard to pickup the phone as it is so thin. My palm kept bumping the ALERT button so I had to scramble to stop the call. I need to recharge it every 6 days even if I don't use it.
Cellphones are only good if the person is able to type without any problems. If one has age related tremors forgetaboutit. My texting was a huge mess even when using a stylist pen. The book says I need to set up an e-mail account so I can go into voice mail. Say what??? Plus I have the text font at the highest level and I still have problems reading it. How old were these coders who design the software for this phone? Were the phones even beta tested by seniors?
Wish I could get my old flip phone, which had a slide out keyboard, back up and running. It was so easy to use :)
I have kept all my landlines phone in place, so I don't need to carry around the cellphone. I know cellphones are harmless but I still worry about low levels of radio frequency energy, a type of non-ionizing radiation.
So instead why don't you ask those who go to visit her, if they would ask her if there is anyone she would like to call and then using their own phones, can make the necessary calls for her.
Or if the assisted living facility still has a landline for general use of their occupants, they can assist her in making her calls too.
www.razmobility.com
What mom hated about her phones were that when she was talking and the other person said something, the phone would cut out. So she missed a lot of what was being said.
With dementia--that's a whole new ballgame. My MIL has some level of dementia & is deaf & does not answer her phone or her door. It's frustrating as all get out. She can't HEAR either, so the cell phone, while it's on her most of the time--is pointless. She can't answer it. DH just calls the landline, leaves a message and if he hasn't heard back from her in 3-4 days, he simply goes to her house.
Good luck