comments:
This is one of our biggest struggles. I've even started poking my nerdiest friends to see if there's any group interest in building an open source home media server interface for dementia-style simplicity. She used to be able to navigate streaming and even share logins around her group of friends, but she can't remember that anymore. "Your TV system is different from the one I had in (home state)". It's not, but one of the big red flags that caused mom's best friend to finally call me and say "it's time to come get her" was that she noticed my mom had stopped watching TV unless the friend came over for Survivor and then mom handed her the remotes to put it on. "Okay, well, what do you want to watch and we'll put it on for you!" "I don't know." This is the loss of discretion - they can't weigh information in order to make a decision. I even subscribed to the paper TV Guide so she could bring it to us - this helps a little. She doesn't really understand that we're bringing up the streaming version of whatever she points at but we can at least find SOMETHING she likes. And if I get her hooked on something she can keep watching them, like if I get her logged into the PBS app for a specific show she sees in the TV guide, she'll often keep herself entertained for a couple days before she comes back for help. It's an absolute game of roulette picking something for her to watch that will get her attention. She came in the living room while I was watching The Pitt (without my husband because he can't handle it) and I was like "oooohhh, let me change this, this is a little" - and she cut me off and sat down and was like "start it over." Then she went to her room and binged the first season. When she first got here I introduced her to The Repair Shop (she used to be able to fix anything, she should have studied engineering) and I think she watched nothing but the "live" Repair Shop channel on Tubi for a month. DO get a new TV if you can, it does help. Mom's current bedroom TV is a slightly cranky Fire TV that I'm going to replace with a new Roku TV and get her the minimalist remote (in bright green so I can find it when she loses it in the sheets).