Night telephone calls

[sheelz]

We have been having the constant day time calls for a couple of years now, and also mum saying she 'hasn't seen anybody all day', carer goes to give her breakfast and stays for a while for company for her, and also my sister (lives locally) goes 2/3 times daily and mum also gets put to bed, I live 45 miles away and go twice weekly, Mum has now started to ring me and or my sister in the middle of the night, the tv is on full blast, i try to persuade her to go back to bed as its 'in the middle of the night' etc. I know this is part of the dementia but just wondered if anyone's got any advice please.

 

[Witzend]

It's very difficult, and many people are reluctant to disconnect or leave the phone on silent in case of a real emergency. Any instructions or requests, whether verbal or written, about not ringing between the hours of X and Y are usually useless, since the person simply will not remember.

What some people do is have a dedicated phone for such calls, with a message something like, 'Hello, Mum, it's night time and we're all asleep at the moment, but I'll ring you back in the morning.'