Tips to help my Mum from afar

[DAHughes]

Hi everyone,

Sorry if questions similar to the above have been asked many times before, but I have only found the forum today.

Quick background, my Mum (57) was diagnosed with Parkinsons about eight years ago. She had a pretty tough time with it over the years as doctors battled to determine why she suffered with bad tremors, what the correct medicine was for her etc. The diagnosis was changed to MSA 18 months ago.

I haven't lived at home for some years and now live in a different city, albeit only 40 mins away, so I do head back home semi-regularly. But I think she's feeling particularly isolated in recent months based on our calls.

Lockdown has obviously impacted this, but I think it's more her inability to walk much now, and deteriorating speech that is impacting her most. She used to be very social, seeing and gabbing with friends on the phone, using social media etc. But it's now extremely difficult to understand what she says on the phone, and she can't use smart phones anymore due to the condition.

She does have a husband (my step parent), and a daughter (my half-sister) who live with her. Although, I frankly don't believe she gets the love or attention I am sure many others within this forum get from their loved ones. Furthermore, my sister has autism so that sort of thing doesn't come naturally to her.

She has carers going in 4x times a day which is a blessing, but I fear in between these moments, she sits around unable to do much of anything and gets very little

in the way of conversation or attention.

Does anybody have anything from their own experiences that they could recommend as enjoyable pastimes for someone in her condition, or ways to maintain some form of the social aspect of life?

Thanks

David

[Yanno]

Hello David, welcome albeit I'm so as ever that you need to be here. One thought comes to mind. Did your mother read books at all? My Jackie was an avid reader and now uses Audible to have books read to her. My son bought her a start up subscription some years ago and no we wouldn't be without it.Should this suit your mum there are many ways to access Audible, through an iPad, Amazon Echo device etc. There are also accessible versions of these that may help her.

Also on the social side of things; you can get an Echo show or an iPad where friends can use Alexa to 'drop in' to talk and see here with no need for any IT knowledge from your mum. Obviously you will have to manage the privacy issues but this isn't surmountable.

Hopefully others will have some ideas for you as well.

Take care, Ian

[DAHughes in reply to Yanno]

Thank you for this, it was really helpful!

[Diane831 in reply to DAHughes]

Geoff had some wireless headphones to listen to his audible books if I was busy with something so that he was fully engaged but I wasn’t distracted. Obviously it may mean that someone else has to make sure that everything is charged and the headphones are on comfortably. Diane

[DAHughes in reply to Diane831]

This can done, so again, helpful. Thanks Diane. I'm going to get some books downloaded for her and maybe try some podcasts too.