Mom with dementia has been in memory care unit for 8 months. She calls (daughters/friends) 20x a day and doesn’t remember. What can we/the nursing home do?

My mother forgot how to use a phone long before she went into care but I wanted to comment about the isolating. My mother is in a very small home and, if I advise them of the time I’ll arrive, the staff will get her out of bed and into the common area, but not tell her I’m on my way. (she’s forgotten me anyway) Common area = visitor = (mostly) good. If another resident is there, I’ll try to get a conversation going, hoping it inspires my mother to associate with the others. I’ve had some success.

Limit your calls to her and only call her once a day. If she weren’t constantly reminded that her phone exists, maybe she forget about it for long periods of time, which would give her care facility a good chance to tell her that calls are limited to one hour a day and keep it away from her until then. Isolation might seem bad to you, but it might be calming to her. So wait and see how that plays out. She might like to
listen to more music or watch TV when she’s alone in her room.

Eve1957,

It appears that you and I share both the same birth year and very similar situations with our mothers; I am devoted to mine also, in MC with advancing dementia and freq calls (with mine, only on her best days).

I call Mom at least once every day and have for over 2 years. She's desperately lonely and unfortunately, I'm her sole source of family contact, along with my daughter and grandkids. My parents (lost Dad to Covid 2+ yrs ago) have always been wonderful, loving and kind people, but family rejection of their 42 yr marriage and myths surrounding the timing of their courtship (as perpetuated by his ex), have kept Dad's 'kids' totally alienated and my surviving sib is a toxic NPD who is rightfully rejected by Mom. It all falls to me and Mom and I have a deep and abiding friendship and love.

On her anxious days, when in her dementia, she recognizes the extent to which she's losing herself and needs reassurance, I'm all she's got and she'll either dial out - my # is posted by her phone - or she'll have staff call me. I'm fine with that, 24/7 because I know these days are numbered.

However, a few weeks back, she called 3 xs in one day and that was in addition to my calling her. I spoke with the unit SW mgr and we discussed that if it got out of hand, a block can be placed on her phone to prevent these calls that she has no memory off. For now, I'm still encouraging her to call, but she's now not calling out again; it cycles and she hadn't previously called me on her own for well over a year.

I'm very much assured that my Mom has staff people around her who do actually care about and understand her, as she now is, and they have a lengthy description of who she was in the full life that she's lived. I know that she has people whom she trusts enough to ask for a comforting hug. I cannot be with her nearly as often as I want due to the 90 mile distance and have had to let go of being her sole solace; these other relationships are key to her emotional wellbeing.

With such frequent calls, you have to place limits on her ability to call out. It's not mean or cruel or abandoning your dear mother, rather, it's you and family being able to survive the travails of her advancing dementia. If her phone is part of the facilities system, you can have the 'switchboard' block numbers. If it's a cell phone, you can go in and do some resetting to block her calling constantly. I haven't researched it, but given technology, I wouldn't be surprised to find a device that would allow her to call a number once in a 24 hr period or only between certain hours.

Both of our moms' brains are broken (as with most all on this forum) and while your mom's mind wanders those corridors, you cannot allow yourselves to be taken along her dementia-fueled meanderings. Please take action to alleviate the stress that all of this causes and understand that you're not hurting your mom, just acting out of self-protection by blocking her broken brain from hurting you.

Do what you can to encourage trusting relationships with MC unit staff, esp the SW and Nursing Dir., they can both be of tremendous help through these transitions. Be mindful that while grief takes ages to process, if we ever, ever get past it, the adjustment to a new environment - with a lot of support - can take over 3 months and that's a minimum. Her anxiety will lessen with time. Her grief over the loss of her beloved husband will remain with her until the dementia is further advanced and everything will blur further and she'll begin to forget all but the loneliness.

We cannot be there in the way they need us to be and it's alright to begin to give ourselves permission to separate. It's a process.

I wish you strength and abiding peace.

Eve1957, I noticed where my Dad had lived in Memory Care, the residents had the option of renting a landline phone for their room.....

Those without a room phone could use a community landline located in the main hallway. Rarely saw any resident using said phone. I bet eventually they forgot the phone was even there, or found it too much energy to walk from their room to said telephone.

I agree with taking her phone away for most of the hours of the day.

I also agree that she might benefit from an anti-anxiety med.

If they won't take the phone away, then turn your phone off and call her when it's convenient for you. Or turn off the volume or whatever you need to do to stay sane.

Of course you miss your mom. This person you're dealing with is not your mom. My mom is barely my mom anymore either. All of us dealing with dementia have lost or are losing someone. It's a horrible disease.

Good luck.

Perhaps it's time that her phone mysteriously disappears. Or have the memory care keep it and have them just allow her to use it for 1 hour in the late morning and 1 hour in the early evening.
If moms memory is getting worse it probably won't be long that she won't be able to figure out how to use her phone anyway.
So for now have the center limit the hours of use, lose the phone(take it away)or just continue to block her calls or have them automatically roll to voicemail.
And as Daughterof1930 suggested it might be time to have mom given some medication to calm her anxiety.
Good luck.

Her ability to make phone calls needs to be limited by the memory care residence. It’s not only stressful for you and the others she’s calling, it’s stressful for her to be doing this so many times a day. Decide on a number of calls that will be allowable and work with the staff to make sure no more than that number happen. Perhaps use a white board with a dry erase marker to mark off 5 calls a day (or however many it’s decided she gets) She needs to be told that’s the rule, no further explanation. And the activities director needs to be engaging her more to get involved, not sitting alone. Consider if a med to calm her anxiety is either needed, or if already using one, if the dosage is still appropriate. Anxiety so often comes with seniors dealing with so much, and it’s a gift to help them feel calmer