I'm imagining a Bluetooth connect flashing light or else a smart watch suitable for a senior with dementia. Dad doesn't know how to check for missed calls and he doesn't know how to check text messages. I'd prefer to not put in a land line because that would cause other problems.
Check sites that sell products for hearing impaired people.
Phones that have a light that flashes
Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors that flash
doorbells that have a light that flashes or can be connected to a remote fixture that will alert a person.
For a cell phone many people have hearing aids that are connected to the cell phone.
Smart watch will vibrate
(Ventingisback)
(I agree with others: he shouldn’t live alone)
When the phone rings, I about jump out of my skin, it's so loud.
Why she even has one anymore is beyond me. Probably a security thing?
For deaf people, the lights flashing when the phone rings might be helpful to a Sr who can't/won't hear. They do have to be able to add one and one and remember that the flashing lights means the phone is ringing. IDK, it's too late for my MIL.
MIL can't hear the doorbell--DH rigged it to a very loud ringer, but she never hears it.
She has an Ipad of some kind that she does use to text her DD and then DD gives the 'boys' the info du jour.
Now she is losing her ability to form a real sentence, so this is going to be discontinued soon enough.
I guess the secret is finding what works for your person--what worked with my mom was her regular phone, which YB disconnected, for some reason and refused to have turned back on. I do feel bad that the last 5 years of her life she spent unable to figure out a cell phone and feeling quite disconnected to the world.
Go with old school - landline phone. I bet he'll remember how to answer that. You can call phone company and ask if they have a phone with very loud ringer or you can probably buy one on your own. Simple - a phone that rings loud and gets answered. Forget about bluetooth at this point in his life. Too difficult to learn for people at certain phases in their life.
Don't send him texts anymore - too frustrating to you when he doesn't respond. He can't respond because he's not even aware a text arrived. Make it easy on yourself. And on him - if you ask him about not responding to a text or seeing that you tried to call, you're frustrating him, too.
Caring for someone with dementia/Alzheimer's comes with learning to adapt as the disease progresses. Don't be alarmed if he also won't be able to tell time, read a clock and confuse the small/big hands on the clock. Mom's been like that on/off too.
I've learned to keep mom's day to day very simply, easier her for and less stress on me for managing her needs. Since I'm here caregiver, anything pertaining to her health care needs are done directly to me vs on the landline, that way communication isn't delayed (or forgotten because mom couldn't remember who called, reason, etc). You might also want to consider phones needing to be removed entirely at some point because of scammers easily tricking an elder.
Good luck!