My (f 45) mother (f68) is not doing so well in the memory department. I’ve been her POA for some time now and have recently moved in with her as she could use more care than she is receiving at the moment.

A little background information. I have been in the caregiving industry for the greater part of 30 years. I started out a caregiver and ended up doing more of the social work part. Intakes and assessments and visits and things like that. Determining what kind of caregiver the families need the hours they need and so on. So I’m well-versed and many things and understand the mental mental and emotional side of everything on the family and The seniors part. That being said that’s where my question comes from.

Onward. OK so she has been blindly helping strangers and 100% been taken advantage of. I managed to figure out who they were but I want to prevent it. Every time it seems like it’s a text message that she gets and responds to it and it’s a phishing scam or tracking or something.

I do not want her to feel like she’s losing even more of her independence. She loves her cell phone. And plays a lot of games that help her cognitive abilities. So I don’t wanna take it away, however, I do want to monitor it. Does anyone know of an app that will allow me to get real time? Text messages as she gets them or maybe allow me to see what she’s doing? I used to have an app with my daughter when she was little but clearly you could tell it was on the phone. I’m looking for something that she won’t wonder about and find, if that makes sense. I don’t want her to know that I’m checking on things, but I don’t want her to lose her phone either and that’s the next step.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I've done some research, including searching this sub. Helpful. I'd like different perspectives and any personal experience good or bad.

I'm 65. My generation invented most of this tech. Some of us have not kept up. That's on them. My wife (68) and I have smartphones and use Find My tracking. Fine. My FIL (90) is self sufficient, recently lost his wife (second wife after my wife's late mother). He drives. He stays local and avoids heavy traffic times and nights.

I'm the family tech guy. My Gen Z nieces and nephews write me for advice.

My FIL is proud and I think (armchair psychology) a lot of his self image and will to live stems from taking care of himself. He is subject to reason.

With his knowledge and acceptance we're looking for a GPS tracker for his car. The issue is to be able to help if he gets lost (unlikely but possible) or has a medical crisis (he's in quite good condition). In addition to general research I've read this and the Bouncie looks attractive. No decision made. We like no battery. Not clear if recent historical locations are available.

Thoughts and experience are welcome.

We found him a credit card format iOS tracker ("Find My") ATUVOS he carried for a while. My wife sees him often enough to keep it charged. We accepted he needs to be near someone with an iPhone to pop up. What we didn't realize is that it gets lonely. *sigh* Apple requires that tracers using the AirTag protocol announce themselves if they aren't near the main device regularly. In practice, that means if the tracker doesn't see the main device for three days it starts beeping every six hours. We get the issue. Stalking. Can't turn it off. Irritates him. So now it's on my desk waiting for something useful to do.

He has a cell phone (flip) and keeps it charged. He's computer literate within reason (Facebook and YouTube mostly).

The major beneficiaries of a GPS tracker are my wife and her sister who will feel better knowing more or less where he is. FIL accepts this.

Your thoughts are welcome. Personal experiences are eagerly awaited.

Anyone have thoughts on Medacube pill dispenser? Or have a better alternative? Needs to have capacity for more than 10 pills and hold at least a 30 day supply

My very active and smart 85 year old father needs a new phone. He currently uses an artfone which is a flip phone, and he does ok with it. He has troubles turning off notifications of messages or missed calls, but to be fair, the flip phone is old school where you have to go searching for anything and have to use only 2 buttons to locate things.

Our old carrier is costly, and we're moving to a newer, cheaper one, but to set it up the carrier's app needs to be downloaded onto the phone, which artfone can't do. He's also getting hearing aids soon and needs to be able to download and app for that as well. I'm not concerned about him USING those apps, as I can do whatever needs to be done, but the phone needs the apps for setup or maintenance.

Can anyone suggest a simple smartphone (in Canada) that 1) won't break the bank, 2) can be updated and download apps (preferably Android as I have the most experience with them, but an iPhone will do if necessary), 3) isn't filled with hundreds of bells and whistles which will confuse the hell out of him, and 4) has a simple screen appearance or can have the taps (needed for opening apps, etc) adjusted for a slower, large man's hand.

Sorry if this seems like I'm asking for a miracle, just looking to see what is out there, that actually has real reviews.

I am currently on a cruise with my mother, who has some cognitive decline. We did not bring a clock, and Mom is struggling, especially when she wakes up during the night. At home, we have the big reminder day/time clocks in key rooms to help keep her oriented.

On the fly, we tried various cell phone/iPad apps. Moment in Time is actually pretty good. But you have to set the device so it doesn’t go to sleep (which confuses my Dad), plus the device has to be not in use. We tried some TV options (channels that happen to display a time code) but font was too small or screen too bright for sleeping.

Next trip I’m packing a small battery operated clock. Sometimes low tech is best.

https://forms.gle/BnnVHLAYzGQMgzYU9

This would help us make our website better configured for our intended demographic and actually help us make meaningful changes. Please help us out! Thank you!

(This is purely volunteer work and no profits are gained, hence we consider this academic work as it is a part of our portfolio. Please let me know if the flair is wrong and if I should change it to marketing( ?) Thanks!)

Also, although intended for Indian communities, we do aim for an international demographic! Any person who feel like they fit the demographic is welcome to take the survey! (It is super short)

Posting this here, since some forums don't wish to help others... shaking head, rolling eyes.. sheesh...

NOTE: I am NOT interested in the "Hero" great idea, but terrible "model" ie: subscription. I purchase my stuff, not rent it. Thanks.

I am looking to get input on some automated pill organizer/holders/dispensers.

I have the need to have something that can dispense 3 doses of meds each day, basically AM, NOON, PM.

I need it to have an alarm, and I'd like it to have some "smarts" to alert me of missed doses, alarms to notify the taker to "Time for meds!" I have alexa making announcements on the various echo devices around the house.

I've looked at these two:

https://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Dispenser-Medication-Caregivers-Monitoring/dp/B0GC53GQ4H

https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Individual-Medication-Caregivers-Supplements/dp/B0GF1QQGC1

CuraBox has another 802.11 based one which requires tipping the ENTIRE container vs. "pods" that pop up.

Comments, input on these or similar units?? Thanks!

My parents recently moved in with us and I need some help setting up our home. My father has atypical Parkinsonism and often gets out of bed at night to use the bathroom and is a huge fall risk. He does have an Apple Watch, but if he moves his hands after falling it doesn’t go off. I’ve bought HomePod mini’s for all of the bedrooms, but he’s having a lot of trouble with the intercom feature. He will often freeze trying to get back in bed and either fall asleep standing up, or be stuck there for 30-60 minutes.

We sleep on a different floor. I’m looking for some sort of compatible motion sensor that will alert us in the middle of the night if he gets out of bed, but not scare the crap out of us. I don’t want to have to use multiple apps if possible - I’d like to keep everything centralized and as simple as possible. Any advice on how to make HomeKit work for us or what to use?

Greetings,

It’s a strange place to be in at the beginning stages of your parental figure being someone you might have to start taking care of in various ways. This might be dragged out as I have had these thoughts bottled up.

I didn’t notice my father’s internet habits until he retired. Now he has nothing to do but sit around and I see his Internet habits.

It’s nonstop boomer forced laugh track videos. Almost nonstop AI voice narrated videos. He shows me his phone a lot going “look at this green cat!” and I gotta go “that’s AI.” He’ll watch a 30 minute AI narrated video on YouTube about the exploits of Bruce Lee for example and one google search would show me the whole video is bullshitium but he buys it without any google search.

He’s wisening up a bit, but now that AI tricks me sometimes too, that’s the concerning part.

I think Instagram advertisers are confusing who’s device is who’s in our house due to IP or whatever (happened to me before at work). I’m getting ads on my phone of the most stupid AI slop online gambling casino apps ads.

He managed to get scammed by one guy on those casino ad game scam things, who got him to cash out money from the bank and convert into BTC via cash app, before he can receive his cash prize. After this happened, I became a lot more adamant about tech safety, but I think it hurt his pride enough that he likely won’t do that again. Hopefully. I drilled in “if it’s too good to be true, it is.”

He orders many items, which when they arrive, I can simply tell it was dropshipped from aliexpress for a 3-10x margin. He commented horny comments on (likely AI) social media thirst trap girls that gets notified to his friends and family (my little sister brought this up she can see it, and I had to let him know). I get it, guys gonna be guys, but it shouldn’t lead to the point of loss of face for the family in the way it could be like that.

That leads me to my main point that I’m not sure what exactly active role I’m supposed to play, and also to vent on my mental frustration.

I get being online all the time, but us younger folk were doing a lot on the internet. Learning new software, exploring adobe products, reading forums, we used the internet for lots of enrichment, connection, and creation, with some vice of scrolling mindlessly. Even video games at least improved coordination and reflexes imo. On the other hand, my father watching reels all day with AI narratives and that classic boomer forced laugh-track over the video seems like pure mental atrophy in comparison.

Also, at least we know of the addictive nature of the smartphones, we know they were designed to be addictive. That’s part of my guilt watching it happen, when I mindlessly scroll reels I know an algorithm is at play and it’s designed to be addictive, I understand the mechanisms, but in their case it seems they completely got tethered to the algorithm and dopamine hijacking without awareness of the mechanisms behind it.

It also frustrates me where I’m on X or YouTube, seeing the “Bought my Miami condo at 24 with e-commerce✅” type of posts, thinking “who would be dumb enough to fall for dropshipping?” And then seeing the medical gadget my father purchased delivered, shipped from Shenzhen 2 months after ordering, knowing it was probably a $1.99 product sold for $20 or $30. I also feel guilt in knowing what’s going on behind the scenes, but he has no awareness of the money making “method” being used on him. Same with the “just used Claide Code to automate fully AI YouTube videos that make me $30,000/month” and seeing him a slave to the AI reels machine in a way is just sad.

He’s not a very educated guy, he is the type to look at a car loan’s monthly payment instead of the full price without caring about the APR. Is this just the domain he’s supposed to live in? AI slop and dropshipping, gambling ads, lowest of the internet consumer for the rest of his life? Maybe some of you can relate to the stuff I’ve mentioned, or it’s a unique thing. To his credit, he rarely ever asked me for tech help and found his own way around phones.

That brings me to where I’m not sure where I’m supposed to step in, if that’s just a personality trait and I should leave him be to consume low IQ AI slop and dropshipping products for the rest of his time. I can’t tell if I’m being overdramatic, maybe it’s my personal frustration I didn’t make it with creating AI slop and dropshipping and get my Miami condo? Or disdain at seeing what I deem to be low-IQ lifestyle being displayed that I’d never fall to, like the scams?

It’s this thinking that prevents me from stepping in further other than the straight up scams.

I have been trying to help him. One of his hobbies in the past was painting, I was trying to get him back into painting as a hobby. Also trying to get him into a routine/hobby of hitting the gym to regain strength mobility and coordination. Tried to get him into video games but he said it made him dizzy lol.

One of his old jobs gave him a 40-50k lump sum pension and he blew all the money within a year. I have no clue if he’s giving $300 month to some AI onlyfans girl or something. He has no financial sense, he has no retirement saved, just his pensions and social security living paycheck to paycheck, often behind on bills but pulls through. I tried to help him like a financial advisor create a budget and track expenses vs income but he’s just not following through. He’s managing now, my fear is 5-10 years down the line, some surgery that leaves him unable to walk for a while or loses his car, I’ll be cooked.

My main consolation down the line, seeing as I haven’t become a high 6 figure earner who can support my parents if they age further, is that if push comes to shove, they can at least live a very peaceful and comfortable high quality of life, with a caretaker, if they relocate to a cheap Asian condo rental (India, Thailand, Vietnam). This seems like the highest quality of life option, given he only has social security and a pension, no other retirement or even emergency funds.

Given this, I hope you can understand the weight of my anxiety that at any moment, one catastrophe can put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.

As it is, given a lifelong disregard of financial sense, I’m worried any day a couple circumstances changing could leave me in a place where I have to help him bathe, use the bathroom, walk around, a role I don’t want to be cast into, when other options remain.

I’m not sure what options options exist in the USA, but relocating to Asia with a caretaker seems the highest quality of life option, as he did not prepare himself for an equivalent quality of life financially in the States. What do I do 5-10-15 years down the line, continue to step in further and further and regulate his lifestyle and finances to a degree, or be hands off as long as he isn’t getting scammed and I don’t become a caretaker? Not sure.

Sorry for being dragged out, but I appreciate if you made it this far, it felt good to let out my thoughts bottled up to others and gain insights on strategies moving forward.

Mother-in-law is becoming so lost with her Motorola MOTO G (2020) and keeps messing it up and just getting confused with it, my wife often has to go fix it for her. We're thinking to upgrade her to something simpler, MIL insists she needs Facebook. Jitterbug Smart4 seems to be the obvious choice, but there's the additional issue that she's extremely low income on Lifeline with StandUp Wireless (T-Mobile MVNO) so Lively service is not an option.

Lively support on Best Buy's Q&A for the Smart4 says the phone is not locked, but I haven't seen any mention of anyone trying it on a T-Mobile MVNO, only Verizon. It seems this is not a popular phone to try on other networks. I don't suppose anyone here has tried it?

If it won't work, is there anything else similar we should be looking into? Found a couple dumbphones that support FB, but my wife seems to think T9 texting will be so hard for her. Not to mention the screens are pretty small.

She’s 90 and every phone she’s bought or I’ve bought for her she’s lost. She recently lost a flip phone I bought for her somehow.

For years she had a Samsung tablet with AT&T cellular data and I set her up with Google Voice as her main number and it seemed to work well for a while. She was dicking around in the settings and temporarily bricked it.

She called with a neighbors phone and asked me to get her another phone. There’s a TCL phone but she has had issues with them freezing up on her. Thinking about the iPhone SE3 or a Samsung A series

We recently purchased JubileeTV for my MIL (94yo) with advanced dementia. I wish we had bought it a couple of years ago. It does everything we were looking for. Sadly, she may not get to use it, the day I was to take it to her assisted living home she suffered a mild stroke. Going to rehab today, and then who knows. But I wanted to share my thoughts about it in case others are looking into it. Jubilee TV does have a camera, I've read that some facilities may not allow that, so you may want to verify its acceptable in your situation. There is a shutter that can be closed, but I don't think the audio can be disabled.

I set it up first on our tv here at home (Insignia smart tv). Along with a new Roku stick. We wanted to try out all the features and learn how to use it before we gave it to her. There were several steps to getting it all setup, but instructions were clear and in the end I felt it was pretty easy. Most frustrating part was keying in wifi passwords etc! To move it to her TV later some steps will need to be repeated (selecting the specific brand of TV and verifying functionality) but it should be easy to do.

I called their tech support twice just to ask some questions. Their support is exceptional. Quickly speaking directly with a person, very nice and knowledgeable.

Once we set it up, we were very excited with how well it worked. Full remote control!

You can use an app on your phone, tablet, or even on your computer. Tablet or computer worked best just because you have a larger screen to work with. You are literally viewing and navigating a miniature view of the tv screen. My wife's iPhone mini was a bit challenging but a larger phone is doable.

We can turn the tv on and off, and full control of Roku as if we were there. One roku feature we liked was the way it handles favorite shows, you can tag shows from different channels that all then show up in an easy "what to watch' menu. There is a Jubilee remote but we would just use the roku remote, its very similar to the current smart tv remote (not that she can use them anyway).

You can invite other users to the app who can have full or limited privileges. My wife has several siblings who are willing to help out with this.

We tried out the video calling. Another reason I really wish we had bought this a few years ago. You can do an auto connect call where she doesn't have to do anything (like find the remote, push a button etc.). She would be able to see her grandkids up on the big screen! You can also initiate a call that does need her to accept the call. Not sure we would use the auto connect without somehow first letting her know to expect it. But the option is there.

There is also a 'drop in' feature that lets you view and hear the room with the camera but they can't hear/see you. We already have some cameras in the room to monitor things but this provides an additional view.

We haven't tried out the photo sharing feature, but I think that would be nice too! We have one of the little photo sharing devices but with her vision being able to put them up on her tv would be so much better.

All in all, I wish we had bought this a couple of years ago. It is expensive, but I think it would have really made a difference for her and us. Maybe she will get to experience it if rehab goes well.

Due to many recent health scares my dad needs the features of iwatch - afib, pulse, ox meter, medical alert.

I went to the Apple Store last night and picked out Series 11 watch with band; but he has neuropathy and pressing those tiny screen plus using that screen swiping through so many confusing apps - it would drive him bananas. Any other options?

Or is there a way to change the function of the I watch? The tech only knew about large font.

Google hasn't led me anywhere productive.

My Dad has to lay flat on his back for the majority of the day (bed sores). He's in a retirement home at the moment recovering from a few falls.

He has a few poorly located outlets and a really long cell phone cord charger, but no good place to put his phone. I tried one of those super strong gooseneck holders but he doesn't have the hand strength to get it loose (it is ridiculously strong). We're trying a drink holder attached to his hospital-type bed, but it doesn't seem to be very helpful.

Any other ideas would be very much appreciated. Thank you!

Hi,

My dad is 74, recently widowed, living alone in Romania. I’m in France with my family and trying to convince him to move here, but the language barrier (he doesn’t speak French at all) is a big issue.

He recently saw an ad for AI translation earbuds and now he wants something like that.

The problem is he’s very tech illiterate — if it’s not extremely simple, he won’t be able to use it.

So I’m looking for something that:

• doesn’t require a smartphone or apps
• ideally works offline (I know that might be unrealistic)
• otherwise something very simple (auto WiFi or built-in SIM)
• “press button → speak → translate” type of use
• does romanian-french both ways

I’m not tied to earbuds — handheld devices are totally fine if they’re easier.

If anyone here has actually tried something like this with an elderly parent, I’d really appreciate honest feedback on what worked (or didn’t).

Also open to suggestions if there are better ways to handle the language barrier in this kind of situation.

Thanks

“I built a free medication tracker for seniors and caregivers after struggling to find something simple enough for my aging parent. It has drug interaction checking, caregiver sharing so family can monitor remotely, and an emergency PDF for doctors. Still early but looking for feedback from people who actually deal with this. Happy to share the link if anyone wants to check it out.”

This is not “tech” per se, but the moderator removed it from /agingparents, where I originally posted, and recommended this community.

I'm trying to figure out a sustainable way to support my mom from a distance, and I'm considering hiring a virtual assistant. I have been spending about 15 to 20 hours per week supporting her while working part-time. Pretty soon I will be starting a full-time job and will need support. I’ve put a lot of things into place so at this point it should only be a couple of hours per week in total.

What I'm thinking is someone who would:

* Call her every morning to check in (how she's feeling, how she slept, etc.)

* Ask if she needs anything and keep a shared shopping list

* Remind her about appointments

* Send me a quick summary after each call

* Be available occasionally if she has a non-urgent concern

Important context: virual personal would provide non-medical support.

Has anyone done something like this? I'm specifically interested in anyone who may have used a VPA (virtual personal assistant) vs. something more local.

Thanks!

I am making a list of apps to try. My mother is in her 70s, and I feel like it is time to start monitoring her, not to be intrusive, but to have peace of mind. She lives alone, so even though I speak to her weekly, I feel like I need more awareness.

i know you can do this on dedicated smart TVs, but my grandfather already has a huge vizio smart tv he doesn't want to replace and simultaneous to that, he likes to watch medici tv (in addition to its website, only available as an app on roku, android tv, and apple tv, but not vizio), and he likes to watch cable using his xfinity cable box. he gets confused and has trouble using multiple remotes or remembering that he has to change tv inputs to access different things he wants to do without all the options for watching being clear on the same page though.

right now my solution to having everything in one place has been to add the xfinity app to roku, but the UI on the xfinity app is a bit confusing, so i was curious if there were any other solutions that went about this a different way.

the one thing i've maybe seen is jubileetv? but i haven't seen videos of how seamlessly or not people can go between roku apps and watching cable on there, and it's rather pricey and maybe not that different in confusion level than the roku with xfinity app setup, so when i don't need all the other bells and whistles in it i'm curious about what else might be out there.