Several things have happened over the last three years that caught me by surprise. One day while I was taking my afternoon nap the phone rang and by the time I picked it up she had managed to answer it. I listened in for a bit until I heard her trying to find a credit card number to give to the really nice man on the phone who needed money. She could not understand why that was not OK.
My solution for that was to put that phone on do not disturb so that she never had an opportunity to answer those kinds of calls. Over the last two years more than 90% of the calls on that phone have been spam calls. I have finally, as of a few months ago discontinued my landline.
Three years ago she had a cell phone but it soon became obvious that she would no longer be able to even answer calls let alone make calls on it. She could not figure out how to do anything on her cell phone. I cancelled that subscription and for several months she would occasionally ask where her phone was and I would just tell her it was on the charger and soon it was forgotten.
This problem of not being able to use the phone became a problem anytime I left the house. If she was alone, she was worried because she couldn't figure out how she could reach me if she needed me. I tried printing out in big letters my phone number but she couldn't use the phone to dial it. I set the phone up so she only had to push one button to call me and that never got used. I even taught her that she could tell the Amazon Echo to find my phone and it would call me but she couldn't do that either. The upside of the Echo was that I could actually drop in on her in a video call that she didn't need to answer to tell her I was on my way home or what my status was.
One of the things she lost fairly early in this progression of dementia was the ability to understand how to do anything mechanical. She could not dial a telephone, warm something up in the microwave, turn off her Purewick machine, or her CPAP, or even do things that she had been doing for years on her computer that required her to move the mouse and select an icon. If the book she was wanted to read wasn't open she could not figure out how to open it. That has increased to the point where sometimes she forgets how to switch from page to page.
Something else that has become hey bit frustrating is she cannot remember why we need to use the lift to move her from the bed to her wheelchair or the commode. Every time we use it the question is, “Why do we have to do this”. Even when she's sitting on the commode and we're putting new pants on her she can't understand why she can't stand up and pull him up herself.
There are many other things that fall into this category but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment. All of this makes taking care of her a lot like taking care of a small child who hasn't yet learned how to do any of the things that we as adults can do. Once that's figured out the solution that seems to work best is to try to be as a patient with her as I would with an infant. I know that someday we'll get past this.
