Is mom's phone use a public nuisance? Should I care?
Mom has dementia and is in AL. She is very able and verbal. Without her phone I'm afraid she would be more bored than ever. She makes all kinds of calls to SS, lawyers, the bank, etc.. So far no harm has come, but my husband says it's wrong to allow her to pester people. I don't know, it kind of gives her something to do. Recently I was at the SS office taking care of business and the person handling the paperwork said, "Oh I know her, she calls all the time". I couldn't believe it..... I know there's some risk involved and we watch the log to see who calls and we block solicitors. At a recent support group they said to get rid of the phone. I know there are phones you can program so that a limited amount of people can be called. Any experience with those?
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I had a "nuisance" caller about fifteen years ago. I bumped into him in person once, by coincidence, in my neighbourhood, and remember him as an elderly gentleman, seemed mobile enough, just very lonely and - as I now realise - mentally a bit lost.
My phone number must have been very close to that of some local health or social care office, because I regularly got calls from him, and from a lady who is a whole 'nother story. I, in my guise of "Brenda?" as she always called me, became a sort of unofficial occasional switchboard for use in crises - passing on messages about shower installations, missed health visitor appointments, deliveries.
Anyway, the elderly gentleman really just wanted someone to talk to. He would ring with some sort of enquiry - what are library opening hours, would the post office take cheques. He was always very polite, would apologise for disturbing me, and always explained his call with "I'm a grandpa, you see."
I could have wept.
If your mother is calling the emergency services or some other critical phone line like ER's, those numbers need taking off her phone or you'll need to find out how to block her number from calling them. If your mother is only dialling numbers which are already stored on her phone then just go through them and edit out any you feel are a genuine problem. If she's still using her address book, get her a shiny pretty new one with only approved numbers in it.
Any one else she's calling at random can just cope. They can always hang up, can't they? Or maybe, like me, they'll be wistfully glad to take ten minutes out of their work to concentrate on something that matters, for a change, like giving a lost old person the time of day.