Monday, September 19, 2016

Keep The Old Home Phone Service For Elderly Parents

By Kevin Collins


With the popularity of cellular technology, many people seem to have forgotten that the infrastructure of the old home land line is still in place. Cellular phones, with small screens and touch technology, are not easy for many people to use. Simply having a home line may be the best phone service for elderly people.

Familiarity is key when making older people feel comfortable and secure in their lives. Alzheimer patients may not be able to learn how to use new tools, or they may not remember having learned it. This forgetfulness occurs with many people as they age, whether they suffer Alzheimer disease or not.

Older phones had large, often well-lit buttons which are easier for even the most tech-savvy member of the Baby Boomers to use. There are many younger men who still insist on having the older style flip phones that still have buttons rather than a touch-screen. However, even those phones had buttons which are very small and difficult to see for one who suffers cataracts, or some other vision problem.

As parents and grandparents become more home-bound, some are even unable to drive, the need for a cellular diminishes. Land-line phones are more consistently reliable than cellular phones are, with many dropping calls or having poor service even now. Eventually this old technology will deteriorate, but for the time being it is still there to help us and our loved ones feel comfortable and secure.

Most of us remember our kitchen telephone being loud enough to startle us even when there were groups of people all speaking at once. Older people find this volume to be helpful when it comes to getting to a call in time. Rather than having your parent or grandparent running in circles trying to locate a vibrating device, a loud telephone centrally located in their living space helps everyone be more at ease.

If our parents cannot hear a ring, or simply cannot find the device in a purse or pocket in time to catch a call, then it is of very little use to them. If they do not reliably answer their device when we try to call them, then we find ourselves worried for their well being. It helps everyone when they are provided with tools they already know.

We may even think we are helping them by attempting to teach them how to use newer technologies. We tend to be pushy with parents or grandparents sometimes, convinced that they will see how much better this technology is if they will simply listen to us. The fact is, whether they are unable or unwilling to learn it, our insistence that they catch up with the times is rude.

It becomes nearly rude when one forces an older person to utilize technology they are not accustomed to. As we age, we become set in our ways and nearly fearful of change. There is no benefit to forcing a person to use a tool they do not understand.




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