Washing machines…

[Will_London]

My mother has dementia and is struggling to use her washing machine as she thinks that it’s broken (it isn’t). It’s an oldish machine and I find it complicated and inefficient. Can anyone recommend an easy to use washing machine that we could potentially swap over to.

Thank you

 

[Quite contrary]

Hi @Will_London I do not think that the problem would be solved by changing the washing machine, even to an 'easy to use' one. My husband was able to still use our old cooker and microwave, however, they both needed replacing last year. The new ones are not complicated but they are different and therefore he is unable to use them, even though I have shown him how. He is just unable to retain new information, as well as losing some of his old skills.

 

[DreamsAreReal]

@Will_London If the idea is for you to use the machine when you go to see Mum, then most modern machines will be easier to use than her old one. I have a Bosch, about 3 or 4 years old now but very simple to use and with the handy feature of being able to stop the machine to add something you forgot to put in. I use this feature way more often than you’d think, it’s very helpful.

If the idea is for Mum to use it herself then I agree with previous poster. For a person with dementia (PWD), it’s virtually impossible to learn to use new machinery. They can’t remember how to operate things they’ve used for years. New info is even harder.

 

[Will_London]

Hi @Will_London I do not think that the problem would be solved by changing the washing machine, even to an 'easy to use' one. My husband was able to still use our old cooker and microwave, however, they both needed replacing last year. The new ones are not complicated but they are different and therefore he is unable to use them, even though I have shown him how. He is just unable to retain new information, as well as losing some of his old skills.

Thank you for your response, it’s interesting to hear your experience and it’s what I suspected might be the case introducing new processes / equipment.

 

[Toopie28]

Hi there,
Not sure if this will help but this is what sometimes works with my Mum.

I "hid" all the other buttons. So I put a white paper (that blends with the machine) on all the buttons she does not use.
I then added bright neon signs for START and STOP. The final button that needs to be pushed in - I added neon paper around it.
Now - the next part: She knows to wait until I call her so I can walk her through it. So I will say - move one time to the right. Then push the button where it's pink. This does not always work as she doesn't know colours but I know that cutting out all the other buttons has helped.

And introducing new - for my Mum was a disaster. I didn't reaslise she had the starts of dementia and I bought her a new telly for Xmas (Dec 2020) then I had to swap back to the old one.

 

[try again]

We got through three different washing machines in about a year. Problems ranged from unplugging, to simply switching off at the wall
Carers now do the washing each day.