How do you handle 4 to 8 phone calls a day from your elder in assisted living?
Mom can't hear anything I say on the phone (has a special hearing assist phone, but she's just too hard of hearing and not enough cognitive skills for text phone) but she calls a minimum of two and sometimes eight times a day...having forgotten she called 3 minutes ago. I bet I'm not the only one with this problem, so how do you solve this situation? She has told me she would be very unhappy if I remove the phone, so that's not an option I'd prefer to use. Plus the husband's mother calls 3 or 4 times a day as well...both usually in the afternoon/evenings. The upshot is our phone rings constantly in the evening. I have considered even getting a second phone line and putting a special message on it just for them every day, so they can call it 20 times and listen to the message. What do you think, have you tried?
I do understand how irritating this can be, although I think that those making the calls aren't able to prioritize needs and feelings so that they can sort out what needs to be discussed now and what can wait until later.
I'm not sure if it would help but you could try a "call memory pad" - give her a pretty notepad large enough to make a list of things she wants to discuss. Perhaps put some lavender or rosemary oil on it - they have calming properties.
Suggest she write down her concerns; then you can have, for example, a mid-morning call, a mid-afternoon, and then evening call. You could also call her at night and wish her a good night, just to end the day on a positive note.
It may not work though if it's too difficult for her to sort out the reasons she calls.
Another option is to take the first call, tell her that you have a lot of work to do, FOR HER, and will call her back when you have that work done. Then let calls go to voice mail.
Having written this, though, I can understand that with some loss of cognition, everything becomes a "now" issue and that "now" perception needs to be satisfied, w/or w/o thoughts of how it impacts others.
My sister would go out to dinner and Mother would call her cell phone. I begged my sister to just leave her phone in the car. She wouldn't but continued to complain.
Mother cannot hear 95% of the time. She no longer calls me, and we are not in the same state. But, I think I would take out the landline, if she was calling all day long or shut the phone off in the evening. My cousin had to take the phone book away from her mother.