My mom moved into a shared room in assisted living three weeks ago. There are two dressers, side by side, one for her roommate and the other for her. The dressers are the furniture pieces that holds the televisions. This becomes a problem when only ONE TV can be played at a time. My mom's roommate has been living in that room for six months and has ultimate control of the TV (which is on her dresser) and it's extremely loud volume!! And, of course, my mom doesn't like any of the shows that her roommate watches. Picture this, the roommate is in the room, sitting in her rocking chair and watches TV the entire day and pretty much never leaves the room!
I'm trying to come up with ideas of setting my mom up with her own tv that she can watch in bed or in her recliner. I'm thinking of getting a hospital bedside rolling table w/ a portable TV that she can plug earphones into and watch. Has anybody else run into an issue such as this and if you have, how did you solve it? Unfortunately, there's no money for a private room...
We never had a problem with the tv, since, my LO, although she used to love tv, stop being able to focus on it and it didn't hold her attention at all. She would sit and stare at tv with no idea what was on. As long as your mother enjoys watching it, I'd do my best to get her the ability to watch what she likes.
The ideas about using headphones is fine, but, with dementia, as you say your mother has in your profile, the person often isn't able to remember to use headphones, adjust them, turn on tv herself, etc. Of course, perhaps, your mother still has the ability to do that.
Funny thing, after we went all thru this the lady in the next bed complained that the picture or Aunts TV distractor her even though there was no sound. Really, I don't know why the curtains around the beds didn't go to the wall to break up the room.
I can see how it would bother the OP’s mom, and the previous resident. Many isolated people use the television for companionship.
He used to enjoy watching tv, evening news, westerns, 60 minutes and so forth. He was 85 when he died.
I think you’re on the right track. My mom uses headphones for The Young and the Restless soap opera. Doesn’t sound like roommate is going to share the television. Maybe you could suggest she gets headphones too! Best of luck to your mom with her roommate.
I also have closed captioning on mom’s television. She will read the words when she doesn’t feel like wearing the headphones.
Yeah, most likely would only have to be a suggestion to use the headphones. Don’t see how they could force anyone to use them.
My mom would blast her tv so loud that I would get a headache! So my husband, the tech guy in my house went out and purchased the headphones. She loves them. So there wasn’t any struggle to use them. She makes sure they are charged and ready before her all important soap opera, The Young and the Restless! Hahaha
Why can there only be one TV set in the room?
In my mom's shared NH room, each resident had their own (provided by resident) TV. Each had a headset. Each watched their own shows.
My FILs NH provides the TVs, I was surprised to see that......the TVs are attached to the beds! There’s an arm that allows it to swing back & forth so it’s not in the way all the time & it can be moved closer if need be. The TV is about the size of a small 1990s laptop. This is probably the set-up because there is no room for furniture and nowhere to mount a TV on the wall. These rooms were clearly designed for single occupants but times have changed and from what I saw, all room have 2 occupants.