Hello everyone,
Just want to share my story about my father in law and my search for a reminder solution for his medication intake.
My father in law has been diagnosed with Alz about 2 years ago, unfortunately in the last 6 months his memory has been quickly deteriorating. He started forgetting to do simple daily tasks and especially he started forgetting to take his medication (or taking it at the wrong time). One more complication is that my wife and I live a few hundred miles away from him, so it is difficult for us to check up on him.
So I have started looking for some simple “reminder” solutions for him. The thing is I did not want him to start using any kind of electronic/alarm device because I knew that at this stage it will be impossible for him to operate such devices.
I have finally come across a promising solution called Memo24. This is actually a telephone (voice call) reminder service; there is no need for any device, the service will simply call you on your regular phone and play a message to you. You can customize your own message and have as many calls per day as you need.
I have been now using this service with my father in law for about 3 months to essentially remind him to take his pills, but also occasionally to remind him about some important events. I must say this has been of a great help and brought to my wife and I some kind of relief. You can find the service online at memo24.net
Hope this will help some of the caregivers out there.
David.
Indeed these solutions are not fail proof and may be not suitable to everyone, but in many cases they can really help. I have been also looking for such kind of solutions, and some of them (like memo24) do send some kind of alert to the caregiver in case the elderly did not pick up the phone for example. However, I think what is important when using this type of solutions is to make sure that the elderly understands that she/he needs to take the medication right after he/she gets the reminder.
This works as long as they still actually answer the phone and actually remember to take their medications. Whoever is filling up their med tray still has to check in to see that the meds 1) have been (hopefully) been taken on schedule and 2) are not scattered around the room like birdseed. Otherwise, that robo-voice is making phone calls to the Twilight Zone.