When I got my booster I saw how complicated the chain pharmacy made getting the vaccine for those older people who are not computer savvy.
It seems to me, if you want people to get vaccinated, make things simpler.
Who cares if there’s a code. 
Apparently my rant for the day
Thanks, yeah, I’m pretty good at major stuff. I blow a gasket over stupid and minor things. I’m sure there’s a psychological epiphany to be found somewhere in that.
Sigh.
My thought exactly – two elderly people, one with a cane, one on oxygen, in a one-light town so we all know each other — and the pharmacy simply insisted they had to have a code. Hoping that local sibling will make themself available to troubleshoot the next go-round
We just have mom come with us to get shots and gall get it at the same time—H, me, mom and anyone staying at our house, like D.
Canceling the appt I had made for D with Walgreens was challenging—their app doesn’t even allow you to enter the entire confirmation code. You have to use a desktop!
Our Walgreens were having trouble downloading the info we put in at home for their form, so we just filled it out there (this was for the flu vaccine). We will schedule tomorrow for the update for us with pneumonia vaccine. Our particular store has ‘double’ people between noon and 4 pm, so I schedule on line during that period of time so we have less wait. Our particular location use to be 24/7 pharmacy (with some of those hours just drive up only as rest of store closed) and is the busiest in our area (there are about 4 other Walgreens within about 10 miles).
We finally pretty much have our pharmacy pick up of medications ‘grouped’ - but we seem to be stopping in more often than one would think. All of our meds are for 90 days with 2 or 3 refills. It just seems one gets out of cycle and I needed to pick up today, but at least it is 90 day. I saw an older couple, one with a cane, sitting while waiting for their services – IDK if they were waiting for meds or for immunization.
Have gotten to know the pharmacy ‘routine’ pretty well.
What a relief! It took me several years to get my mom’s hoarder house cleared out. When I finally sold it last summer it was bittersweet as it was my childhood home. It took many months to stop having random panic attacks related to the various house issues that would come up seasonally.
We did not go through everything. We checked all papers to make sure we didn’t miss anything important. We took items we wanted (and what she wanted – she’s in assisted living) and had the trucks come to haul out the rest.
Neighbor/friends are finalizing things at his parent’s home with closing on Monday-- dad had died suddenly a few years back, and mom wanted to remain in 3 level house. But as soon as she fell and broke her hip (had socks on and slipped on wood floor between carpet areas) she decided immediately to go to apt/assisted living complex her own mother had been in - and there was hardly a wait for her to get in at the options given and her choice made (she had been a RN, and maybe the ties she had with the complex already made it go well). So they had moved what she wanted, and siblings had come to town and what was wanted to stay in the family was sorted out. The home in a very desirable area in a rising home price city sold quickly. Retired son/our neighbor was there all last week with ‘the rest of it’ as well as this week. During that time, mom doing well at new setting, mom had a major stroke -and she now after hospitalization is in the skilled care part of her facility. Grandchildren are also coming in to see grandma because it seems she had several strokes and brain bleeds - which she had a disposition to due to her breast cancer protocol (stage IV). She is not recovering well as far as speech and body movements (has some of both but tough going).
Hi all, looking for some advice here. My mom, a fiercely independent 81 year old, is recovering from a recent COPD exacerbation w/ pneumonia. She was released to a SNF yesterday. Her cognitive function is quite diminished at the moment, she is exhausted, fuzzy, confused. Hoping that gets better but am being realistic. I’m sure that I’ll be reaching out on this thread (where I’ve been lurking for years!) frequently over the next weeks and months as we navigate through this.
My immediate question has nothing to do with health issues! She’s asked me if I could set up a way to do a video call with her 2 brothers (maybe on a regular basis). Both are out of state, also elderly, not too technologically savvy, and don’t have “kids” nearby to help. One brother has an iPhone and the other has an android so I don’t think FaceTime is an option. I don’t think I could walk either one through how to get a new app, let alone use it. I believe both have computers that they could use. My mom has an iPad and iPhone….at her baseline she’s decent with using both but not at the moment.
Suggestions on a platform I could use to make this work?
I think whatsapp is supposed to be easy to use for this type of thing
And the cognitive function may come back. My father has had many hospitalizations where he is confused upon admission or when released. He then comes back to being his old self again after he is well and back to his routine. My father’s hospitalizations were mostly COPD exacerbations, I think they don’t get enough oxygen to their brain during these episodes also.
My elderly parents actually found zoom really easy to use. They don’t have to install the app to use it I don’t think (it’s been a long few years) - they just have to have a link to click on. Is there any way you could set up an account & set up the meeting times & send them the links? You might have to start the meeting each time unfortunately, but they could each just click the link, get on & then you can say hi & jump off (making one of the others host which is very easy). I believe the free version has a 40-minute limit per meeting, which should be plenty of time.
I agree that most folks can use zoom via phone or desktop and video & audio quality is quite good. They can also have regular repeating weekly meeting scheduled. Free version allows for meetings lasting 45 minutes at a time.
My 90 yr old Mom uses FB video chat…the problem is being able to hear, but with practice she has gotten the hang of it.
I was going to write what @kiddie wrote, that moving from hospital to facility can cause temporary confusion and disorientation. And also that oxygen issues can contribute.
If you guide them by phone, maybe that Zoom idea will work!
I’m really liking the idea of me setting up and hosting a zoom call then changing the host. Does anyone know:
Do you invite participants with a phone number or an email address?
Would reminders be sent to the participants near time of call (maybe that’s something that I as a host would set up? Been a long time since I used zoom)
Luckily I have one kid on apple and one on android so I can always test out on them.
And thanks for the pep talk on the confusion. It’s just discouraging since I’ve never seen her this bad. Trying to stay positive and realistic at the same time.
You can send people invitations for the zoom call via email. It’s easiest to have the most tech comfortable if the trio be the host, otherwise you have to go on and add them as a host if that’s your goal — each time.
My MIL refuses to learn anything technological. She won’t even look at written, easy to follow instructions. We finally all got Echo Shows & set them up so all she has to do is tell it to video call whomever. My BIL is a bit of a doofus, and he refused to explain how he set it up on her end - we weren’t able to send her a text, so we couldn’t get her number as an Alexa connection. After telling him numerous times that we couldn’t add her … she would have to add us on her end … suddenly, it worked. I am guessing it is not that difficult to set up if you have access to an app or email for the older person if they’re not tech savvy or don’t use a cellphone. I just don’t know how, because BIL seems to enjoy making himself the all-powerful only one who can do things. But I digress. The Echo Show, once set up, is awesome.
Our library has classes (really just a session) for older folks to make better use of cell phones and computers. I think someone at a library could help them. There are also groups like boy scout troops that will help set up technology
I also thin android phones can do the same things as iphones or apple products.
(but I do have kids to help set things up).
@JustaMom5465:
We have used most of these options.
If the tech-savvy person sets up the Zoom, it’s easy to just email links. They can be opened in the browser that you use to open the email, but that does require clicking on a smaller “open in browser” link at the bottom; hard to miss so make sure they know to look for that. Otherwise you are prompted to download the Zoom app, probably not the way you want to go.
FaceTime - I presume from your post that the two elderly brothers do not live together? If they did, one iPhone would suffice. There is a way to use FT on Androids, but it involves the Apple user initiating and sending a link that I think has to be opened in a browser; may not be the easiest approach.
WhatsApp - my luddite hubby uses this to communicate with a client in Asia. I had no involvement with the app setup, and that means it’s super-easy 
We have the Echo Show and other Echos; the ability to call/drop in on other Echos is a useful feature. Haven’t used it for video as we don’t know others with the Show yet. It does need to be set up initially, but this might be the absolute easiest once that’s accomplished. No “tech” - just say Alexa, video call Brother 1. I don’t know, however, whether you can do a group video call with more than one other person?