<p>That’s about my mom’s speed with technology, as well. There is no way she could manage a smart phone or even a flip phone. And with any of those, I believe you need to buy some kind of data plan and she won’t use that.</p>
<p>I really like the Spapfon idea and the SOS button on it is a good piece of mind. If she presses that button, it texts all of us and then calls the first number on the list, if there is no pick up, it calls the next one.</p>
<p>RobD, I had to laugh when I read your post about a sibling. Earlier this year, my mom with Alzheimer’s, kept insisting that she had 2 daughters. I’d like to know where the “H***” she’s been all these years?</p>
<p>SteveMA, you are correct: my mother doesn’t hear her cell ring, but that is only because she doesn’t carry it with her. When she is in the same room with it, she hears it and answers it. Her hearing is not great, she could undoubtedly use a hearing aid, but she is very far from deaf. She actually calls me on her cell every day. (I call her on her land line, at least when she has power! )</p>
<p>She is on my sister’s cell plan, because it was cheaper for my sister to do that than to pay for the calls to her on another plan. I’ve tried to get her to take it with her when she goes out, but to no avail AFAIK. I’d like her to at least have it with her in the car. </p>
<p>I hadn’t thought about the smartphone idea. She had to replace her ancient and insufficiently powerful laptop, and unfortunately my niece persuaded her to get an Ipad. The whole touchscreen thing is terrible for her: a conventional keyboard and a Windows machine–what she was familiar with–would have been much better. In addition, I very much doubt that she would go for paying for one.</p>
<p>I read all of the negative stuff about Jitterbug, too. One reason why we didn’t go that way.</p>
<p>Well we went shopping today and found a phone at Sears that had most of the same features as the Snapfon. It’s the Doro Easyphone 410.</p>
<p>It is listed on the AARP website and AARP members get a discount on service. We activated it tonight and I am going to see my mom on Wednesday to set it up with the contacts, etc. Luckily it has a 45 day trial period.</p>
<p>I’ll keep you posted so that others can consider it for their lived ones if it turns out to be a good fit.</p>
<p>All cell phones can dial 911 (as long as they are charged!) even if they aren’t connected to any plan. We gave my 84yo mom one of our old phones to keep with her to use in an emergency. </p>
<p>Unfortunately she doesn’t keep it charged
MOM: “you need to do that?”
ME (shakes head and sighs)</p>
<p>Calling 911 was, of course, one of the things we wanted her to be able to do but we also want to be able to reach her if she isn’t picking up the house phone. In the last year she has had two power outages in her building and we were unable to reachher.</p>
<p>The best feature of the Doro phone is that it has a button on the back that, when pressed, will notify all five of her main contacts that she has an emergency.</p>
<p>My MIL can “locate” her cell phone now that we got her a colored one. The silver was forever misplaced.</p>
<p>My tip of the day…Put a label on the back of the phone with her phone number and a couple other key numbers/speed dials. Also, put some sort of a sticker on the charger to identify the direction it plugs into the phone. MIL had trouble with this and when she couldn’t 'force" it in, she just didn’t charge it.</p>
<p>Another thought is to find a phone without a slippery finish. MIL kept her first one in her sweater pocket and it kept sliding out of her pocket.</p>
<p>^ Great tip about the label. Include the senior’s own cell phone number. Many seniors I work with can’t tell me their cell phone number, and have a difficult time finding it on the phone itself (I must say the manufacturers don’t make that particularly easy).</p>
<p>We got my dad a cell phone–it’s never on, never charged, and he doesn’t take it with him. He leaves it in his car (much good it’s doing there while he goes for long walks). And it’s very easy to use–but he won’t. We tell him that it’s not for HIM–it’s for US and MOM who’s alone when he goes out. It’s like talking to a brick wall and he’s computer savvy too which makes it more irritating.
Work harder on that Lifeline–my cousins have had more success with that than cell phone use.</p>
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