Could you get a burner phone, give him that number, and block himon the other phone? He could still call incessantly but you’d have those corraled?
It must be frustrating. We have precisely the opposite problem – my mother will not call us for anything so she “won’t be a problem”. I will be careful what I wish for.
It actually took a long time, and quite a bit of effort, to get him and all of his care workers (hospitals, assisted living, aide service, etc.) to only use my correct cell phone number. They were calling my “dead” landline and I was missing important calls. So getting him a bad number to call is probably not a good idea.
One tip I heard from an aging expert is to “lose” the old phone and replace with another with which he’s not familiar. This was suggested as a way to deal with the elderly being phone-scammed but seems like it would work here, too.
I just blocked him on my phone - had to do it
@kiddie I had this problem for years. When it was 10 calls a day, I answered. But when it approached 50 a day, I was losing my mind. This is called perseveration and they don’t even realize they are doing it, or at least my mother didn’t. She would just sit there and dial over and over again. If I left my phone in the car for an hour’s visit, I would return to find 25 calls. It isn’t just suffering for us, it is suffering for them.
My mother had a cell and at one point called the fire department by mistake. The facility made me take her cell away (even though the SOS can be disabled). She started using the room phone. Then, if I didn’t answer, she was able to call the front desk by simply dialing “0” so they got 20 calls in an hour one day.
MY mother’s hospice nurse suggested I try a variety of meds. Didn’t work. It isn’'t anxiety, it’s a brain glitch. At least in our case.
I finally used some smoking cessation techniques. 1) I answered at random but not often 2) I moved the phone between bedroom and living room 3) some days I put it in a closet (not often) 4) I disabled the automatic calls on the room phone to me and my brother so she had to dial the number (in kindness I did leave a note with my number)
Overall it became a pain for her to figure out how to call, so calls did lessen. (I and my brother both balanced this with visits.)
One other thing: I got her hearing aid turned up so that at least we could converse on the phone. Prior to that some of the repeats were due the calls being so unsatisfactory that she repeated them.
Last August when my daughter visited, in desperation, I also blocked my mother. After she died in October I found maybe a hundred blocked calls. Pleading, lonely or angry, outraged. We need to do what we need to do.
We went through the phone thing with my mom too. She would forget that she called and would call repeatedly on the days that I wasn’t with her. I would answer one call/day and let the rest go to VM. If there was an emergency my dad would call from his phone. Things improved when she couldn’t figure out how to use the phone.
My mom doesn’t know how to make calls, as far as i can tell, so we are spared the calls.
Today I blocked him and had 58 voicemail messages. He is looking for a phone number of a relative that he says he has “lost”. In something like 50 of the messages he said the identical thing (and some of them were only 1 minute apart).
I already asked that they check his hearing (as I was tired of the calls where all he would say was can you hear me (“yes, I can hear you, but I guess you can’t hear me”). They said his hearing is fine.
Glad I mentioned this here, good to know that I am not the only one who is going through this. Do people think I should discuss with his care providers?
I know that if there is an emergency I will get a call from somebody who works at the facility, so I am not worried about missing something important.
And of course, his glasses are not back at the assisted living, which means most likely lost at the hospital over a month ago. He hasn’t been to an eye doctor in years, I am thinking of asking the place about getting him an eye exam. (and new hopefully better glasses).
@kiddie this does sound like perseveration!
From our experience, I would suggest a hearing test . If he already has a hearing aid, I would have it turned up.
Our audiologist told me that it isn’t just hearing ability, but comprehension, in the elderly. In other words, no matter how much the hearing aid was turned up, she could have issues. BUT when I did request that the aid be turned up, the phone calls did change . They were more satisfactory in terms of communication and she called a little less.
Even if you don’t answer, there is suffering at your dad’s end that needs to be addressed. I agree that keeping busy helps. The more time away from the phone, the better. I thought about hiring someone to supplement my visits but luckily hospice provided aide, nurse, social worker, chaplain, volunteer and Reiki provider, which also helped.
@momoffour my mother forgot what she had been eating, her meals were always very particular, certain things I had to buy and all of a sudden she forgot to use several categories of perishables and I had to thrown them all away.
She also, in hindsight, showed some very illogical behaviors under stress that turned out to be typical of her later dementia behaviors.
Oh, and yes, i blocked my FIL on my phone his final 6 months, the perseveration was making me insane. When we moved him to a new place, we “were not able to get the phone company out this week” and I gave strict orders that that never happen. He could use the facility phone, but did not, so it was helpful. A tiny sliver of quality of life when those daily repeated calls ceased. So sad.
I am with whomever said euthenasia, if I get dementia, I want to take myself out. I don’t want to leave my family with the memories of those times and spend those days being confused and broken.
In the you can’t make this stuff up category. My father has been missing his reading glasses. Thought he left them in the assisted living. I had somebody cleaning out his assisted living apartment and they found a set of glasses. He says “these are not my glasses, I don’t know whose they are, but I can read when I put them on”
Lol!
Well then Dad how about you use those until we find your glasses!
So funny. Not that funny but you have to find humor when you can.
My mom who is of sound mind gets confused about stuff because there is so much newness with her move to independent living.
She needed to get the cable set up, bought a new bigger tv. Was confused about putting the tv on the dresser. We can hang the tv mom, but why don’t you put it on the dresser until we can get there. Oh! Good idea, I didn’t think about that!
It’s a lot of little changes and decisions. Makes any person mixed up at time. Add true cognitive decline and you can imagine the effects.
My mom’s best friend of 60+ years is in a local care facility but otherwise fine; Mom is refusing to visit her there when I come for the weekend.
After talking to Local Sibling, we’ve figured out that Mom is afraid we want her to visit so we can leave her there — so that’s a conversation I will be having with her this weekend. No idea where this idea came from…
It took a bit but mom is so happy that she made the move. It’s so nice.
But I know I had an elderly friend who would not take his wife to visit her brother in a care facility. It made him too uncomfortable.
Personally I thought it was very rude. But I know that some people do not want to be reminded of where their friends have declined. And are afraid of visiting.
Well…my mom kept losing her dentures. I would find them at the nurses station. I finally took a permanent marker and wrote her name on the inside surface of them.
Phones? She did not have one she could use at the SC place. There was a phone on her nightstand…but she never used it.
My mother, at 92 today, is of sound mind and body, but I definitely see a few things from time to time that remind me she is 92. Last year the apartment was having the fire alarms checked in each unit, and there was a set window they would be in the apartment. Mom was not going to be home when they came, so she put her jewelry away. Her checkbook was sitting on the kitchen counter, so she thought about putting it away, but didn’t. When she noticed the next day it was missing, she insisted the men stole it. I have access to her online account, so I kept an eye on it. In the years time, there has been no activity other than from her. As recent as a couple of weeks ago, she still said the guys stole it. I talk to her asking if she put it away some where, or maybe she accidentally threw it away when straightening up; she insisted she left it on the counter. Guess what she found the other day when looking for some jewelry she had hidden? 
It was in a drawer under some shirts.
The losing things…oy! We ended up having to give up on my mom’s glasses. She wouldn’t wear them, kept taking them off (on a necklace chain too) and losing them.
My dad also freaked out because she lost an expensive watch. We found it hidden in her lingerie drawer two years later.
That hidden jewelry brings back really bad memories. Mom lived with Grandma in Grandma’s house all the years Grandma had dementia. Grandma hid things for years. Then Mom also became demented (after Grandma was gone). BOTH of them hid stuff. And we had to go through every pocket, every drawer every bag . Mom turned into almost a hoarder so there was lots to go through. I found several diamond rings and grandma’s ear rings in a bag full of old glasses, in a glasses case. One time fairly recently we went on a trip, I put my good necklace in a good hiding spot…yeah. Decided while looking for it when we got back and not finding it that I was done hiding stuff! yikes.