What kind of phone can I give my 93 year old, technically challenged, mother who is losing her cognitive abilities?

We've had great success with the RAZ mobility phone with my husband in memory care. The caregiver can set up a dashboard where you control who can be called and, if you want, you can limit who can call your mother. (No more scary robocalls for mom.) She will only see one screen with pictures of her contacts and all she has to do is tap that person's picture to call them.

Also, phone manufacturers are not allowed to disable the 911 feature, which is sometimes an issue. If your mom has a tendency to call 911, you can pay about $6/month for a service to intervene. You can give them the info on your mom (for example, has dementia, etc.) and they will contact you (or whomever you choose) to let you know that she's called. You can say yes or no to dispatching fire or police.

There are lots of other features, too. You can set "quiet hours" so Mom can't call at 2:00 AM. (My hubby was doing this and scaring me to death!) It's been a godsend for us. You can buy it several places, or go to www.razmobility.com

PS: I learned about the RAZ phone on this forum.

Blimey, I can’t answer your question but high five your mum. I’d say it’s not that she is losing anything more that technology is going too fast for her to keep up. I’m almost half her age and I’m the same and I’m not the only one to struggle. Your mum is amazing.

www.razmobility.com

Worked wonders for us and our LO in MC.

My 92 yo mom has long since ceased to be able to use her 'smart phone'. She cannot answer it, most days, and she can only call 'out' on numbers that are listed as contacts. Even then, as simple as it is, she just cannot use it. She waits until someone comes in her apartment and then has them dial out for her. (She lives with YB and his family).

She begged YB to put her landline back in. For some reason, which is a bafflement to me, he simply refused. (I think this is part of his weird desire to control her..IDK) But she can still use a regular phone.

We just moved, and I insisted we keep our landline with the same number. I also have a smartphone, as does DH, but I am sure I could do a lot more with my phone than I actually do. I have no desire to spend my days staring at a small screen!

Mom did go 'back' to her old flip phone and she can answer calls OK. I feel bad for her, she does feel lost in technology. So do I !

"In answering, I am coming to the sad conclusion that I'm old enough to be considered technically challenged myself..." We all are. Having said that, some local libraries and community colleges offer, at times, courses on technology for seniors.

She could try this with a landline and a simple jitterbug phone. She would then have two phones. May be that a jitterbug would even be too much. Wish you good luck. At least if a jitterbug is lost it's no huge loss. And if the ringer is on loud a call from any other phone will hep find it if it is in a nearby place.

asfastas1can, good old fashioned landline phone. Us older folks grew up with those phones and know how to use them blindfolded. It rings, you pick up the receiver. Clearer sound. No dropped calls. No misplacing the phone itself, as one can only go as far as the cord. No recharging. Some of the newer landlines have "close captions" which is good if talking to a grandchild who talks at the warp speed.

I am good at technical stuff but iPhone is so complex. I got one of those iPhones made for seniors, but one can quickly tell a bunch of 20+ year olds designed the software and didn't have seniors beta test it. The instructions are written from one software programmer to another. I am constantly hitting the "alert" button whenever I just pick up the phone, and have to quickly cancel the call.

Based on your description of you mom's condition, she most likely won't intake and retain anything new, no matter how simple it seems to us. My 93-year old Mom doesn't remember to address the button as "Alexa" even though I have a giant Post-it note on it with the name. And I usually call it "Siri" ;-) But, a flip phone is inexpensive and not a great loss if it disappears or goes into the wash or a security breach issue if someone else gets hold of it -- it's "just" the time you invested in setting it all up.

My mom has had a flip phone since they were available. The other day she totally forgot what her password to her voicemail was (thankfully I have all her info in my password keeper). And now she has neuropathy in her fingertips so she often can't even feel the phone in her pocket, and very often squeezes the sides to grab it, thus turning the volume completely off. This happens continually. A solution is to super glue those buttons, but you need to slightly disassemble the phone to do this.

Because my mom lives next door to me, many years ago I got her into the habit of always keeping the phone on her person no matter if she was gardening or just sitting watching tv. Will your mom remember to do this? I also trained her to only buy pants with deep enough pockets so the slippery oval flip phone won't slide out and under her chair or car seat.

On this site there are some very tech-savvy people who have installed "simple" electronics so that they can do a video call-in to their parent without their parent having to do anything. Hopefully your mom's hearing is good enough to know when she is being called.

www.alzstore.com has phones for people with cognitive impairment. Wishing you good luck in finding a solution that works for the both of you!

People here have mentioned setting up Alexa to act as their phone connection so that all she would need are voice commands - but I'm also technically challenged and have no idea how to go about that...

My Alz. mother forgot how to use her smart phone, so I got her a flip phone which she managed to use for a long while. Flip phone was easy for her because when it rang, all she had to do was to flip it open to answer. She couldn't make calls as she forgot how to do that.

Eventually, she stopped talking on the phone because she forgot all her friends and most relatives, so talking on the phone was like talking to a stranger that she couldn't see.

Then finally, she forgot about the phone, too.

There's an app called Find My Phone - a coworker was showing his to me yesterday, it was on his iWatch but the phone is a Samsung, so I suppose you can use the app for any device. Haven't a clue how but it's probably obvious when you start using it.

Could your mother use voice commands?
Could you site one of those charging bases in her room that you just plonk your phone on and it magically charges itself?

In answering, I am coming to the sad conclusion that I'm old enough to be considered technically challenged myself...