Knowing what time of day it is

[Louise83]

I'm running out of ideas on how to help my mum realise what time of day it is, some days she goes to bed late afternoon thinking it is bedtime, sometimes makes dinner early or misses meals altogether. Tried:

The memory clocks with "Sunday afternoon... etc" - one up and downstairs, she never looks at them/forgets to.

Setting Alexa up with reminders throughout the day - "it's lunchtime", etc. She ignores it or isn't in the room when it goes off.

Phoning her throughout the day isn't always practical when I'm at work but trying to call at lunch every day.

Part of the problem is she has next to no hobbies, or interest in taking one up, all she does each day is read a magazine or some light housework, maybe popping to the local shop. I have my suspicions that she has forgotten how to turn the TV on, I always do this when I get in from work and later in the evening she leaves the room without turning it off.

I guess it's not that big a deal compared to other problems that carers are facing. I'm just having a rant as I'm tired of coming home and finding her in bed or making meals at the wrong time.

 

[Beate]

She might benefit from a Day Care Centre, giving her day structure in the form of activities, socialising with others and some meals. Have you ever had a needs assessment for her from Social Services?

 

[Louise83]

Yep the CP nurse recommended the cognitive stimulation therapy group once a week, my mum wasn't interested at all despite my best efforts to encourage her to try it at least once. She's never been great for socialising, when my parents were divorced 20 years ago that was it on the social front for her. She never had any proper friends or interests anyway.

Trying to set up Alexa to say what time it is every couple of hours but can't work out how to. Now I've got mum moaning that she doesn't need help.

 

[Andrew_McP]

I'm afraid to say that once my Mum reached that stage (her life used to be her garden but she lost interest and nothing replaced it) her life started to unravel quite quickly. The best thing for you is probably to simply accept it, because you'll blow a gasket trying to rediscover your mother's sense of time. Having someone pop in and check on her will be the only way there's any kind of routine to her life.

It's a horrible stage generally. Your mother is clearly like mine was... nothing wrong with her! And yet everything is wrong and you're the one that has to pick up the pieces. I tried all sorts of tech, but the only useful things I ever did were put cameras in so I could check on her (and often confirm what she was doing when I asked her) and set up a laptop so I could Skype in and talk to her regularly through the day without her having to touch anything. Of course sometimes she would and nothing would work as it was supposed to. Such is dementia life!

Now I'm caring for my mother 24/7 life is harder in some ways, but I wouldn't go back to those early days for all the tea in China. Can we still say stuff like that? And do the Chinese still produce a lot of tea? If only there was a way of finding out.... <wonders off>

Ah, China is still the largest producer by a long way. Not sure how this helps either of us, however caffeine in all its forms is the dementia carer's greatest friend (after Talking Point and neat vodka).

Good luck.

 

[Louise83]

Thanks, that made me laugh! Also had a giggle at the thought of teaching my mum how to Skype! Been a tough week and it's still early days in her diagnosis, you're right about the acceptance.

I've set up more routines with Alexa like playing the radio, saying the time etc. Will see how that goes along with phoning her etc.

 

[Andrew_McP]

had a giggle at the thought of teaching my mum how to Skype!

That's the beauty of Skype... a buried setting which allows it to accept incoming calls from the contact list automatically. No input whatsoever required at that end once it's configured. It allowed me to keep working for a quite while longer even after Mum started to struggle to answer the phone. With the laptop attached to a larger screen it was kind of like having me there.

Of course that eventually led to confusion about whether I was there. Mum could see me, so that meant I must be there, right? Dementia always finds a way to make life hard again, no matter how many small successes we have a long the way!

Still, sometimes it's the smallest successes which can bring us the most satisfaction. I hope you have more success with Alexa. I got one for us and... and there's a thread somewhere...

https://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/threads/alexa-echo.112841/

Not sure that'll help either, but you never know. I have Alexa plugged in again at the moment, just as a lazy radio, but if she starts talking to us at random times about random things again she's going back in the box!

If only all life's problems were so easily solved.