Recognizing dad’s diminishing abilities to maneuver well around the house and manipulate things with his hands, I added a network of Google Home mini speakers and a Google Hub to the house and began trying to train him to ask Google for certain things. There is a device in each room and bathroom in the house to ensure 100% coverage without him having to yell.
In addition, a few months ago I began adding some outlets and light switches/dimmers which could be controlled through Google Home voice commands. “Hey Google, turn on the lights.” will turn on all the voice enabled lights in the house which creates a clearly lighted path for him from one side of the house to the other.
We’ve been working on things like, “Hey Google, what’s the weather.”
“Hey Google, what time is it?”
“Hey Google, what day is it?”
“Hey Google, play some Willie Nelson music.”
Now, understand… my dad has always been (only now am I really realizing it) hyper-careful to attempt anything before he was reasonably confident he’d be perfect at it. Sadly, it prevented him from trying lots of things. We never played games with dad because somewhere, deep down inside, he was paralyzed by a fear of something. Not getting it right. Being ridiculed or laughed at. To this day I do not know why. However, I realized this restricted the learning required to become comfortable using the voice commands necessary to Google-control things around the house. My only hope was that by hearing me do it consistently he would pick it up before he became to feeble of mind to learn it.
Dad began wearing depends type briefs after his heart surgery and has never gotten out of them. Recently, for whatever reason, he’s become even more lax about changing them. Especially at night. The result has been me laundering his sheets daily for longer than I’d like to think about.
During the day I’ve been compelling him to go to the bathroom every 90 minutes to either check the brief and change or pee (or poop… OMG… that’s a whole additional later post)… whichever was appropriate. This was successful at avoiding wet spots on his pants so I had the bright idea to try it at night.
I grabbed an unused Samsung Galaxy Tab-e we have laying around that he had used to read e-books (not any longer) and set alarms at 10:30pm, midnight, 1:30am, 3am, 4:30am, and 6am and showed him how to swipe the alarm away when it goes off. We’ve had some success with the technique so I’ll call it successful. I have not had to wash sheets daily at least.
So, now the funny part. While dad doesn’t officially have Dementia or Alzheimer’s he does have old-people’s cognition issues. They seem to be worse at night.
Last night I was awakened at 1ish AM by a knock at my door. “What am I supposed to do now?” He was obviously confused (and it’s been growing of late). I explained to him when the alarm goes off it’s his clue to head to the bathroom and try to pee and/or change his brief if it’s wet. “But where do I get the pee?” There was more exchange, but finally I convinced him he needed to head to the bathroom and take care of business.
I decided to monitor things from my bed where I could hear him. Silence. I drifted back to sleep. Until, I was awakened by his voice…
“Google I’m ready to pee.”
“Google I need more pee.”
“Google I’m ready to pee.”
“Google I need to pee.”
“Google I need to pee.”
At first I cringed. Then I just laid there and chuckled for a few moments. Then he got up and knocked on my door, informed me he had changed his brief and asked for what to do next. I guided him back to bed and climbed back into my bed to try to get some much needed rest.
Dear Craig, You have your hands full! What an adventure you are on! I wonder if the The Dad has any idea how lucky he is to have you for a son and caregiver? Funny story but not funny. You are a saint!
I tried the same thing with mom. I decided my lack of tech was my problem. Mom’s voice changed when thirsty so the darned googled kept saying it did not recognize her. When she remembered to ask what time it was in the middle of the night, she would then yell out to me asking what she should be doing thinking it was daytime. I taught her to use Google to call people, but she always got confused when calling my sister. She would say ” call Ameka”, and Google would respond with “calling Amica insurance”. When someone there answered… well let’s just say it was always entertaining! Unplugged Google finally and invested in a baby monitor so I could know what she was up to. Gave the Google device to my sister. Laughter is the best response… it’s hard when the person you have always looked to for strength and advise looks to you for that, but I guarantee when they are gone, those laughable moments bring great comfort!
Yeah… ugh. Dad asked me today what time it was. I encouraged him to ask the device and he proceeded to say “Gaggle, what time is it.”
I definitely think I would have started him earlier on it if I had thought about it. Gave my mom a Google Home for Mother’s Day about 3 months before we lost her. Dad never messed with it then so he’s completely stymied by it. Add to that the fact that he can’t make a mistake so he avoids trying altogether. Ugh. I wish he’d at least have tried all sorts of things when I was away. Oh well… lessons from which others can learn. Start the parents early!