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Mom lives in a assisted living home which she dearly loves. The problem is, when they don't have any activities that she is interested in, she spends the day on the phone calling me. It had stopped for a good while but now she has started calling me every 5-10 minutes to tell me what time it is. Yesterday she started calling at 9 am. and didn't stop till she went to bed at 9 pm. They are installing a new elevator and that has a lot of the activities she usually goes to on hold for the next several weeks. If I don't answer, she will call my cell and if I don't answer that call, she begins calling several of my elderly neighbors wanting them to come up to my house and tell me to answer the phone. This was a problem before and the activities she was involved in took care of it but now they are on hold for the next several weeks and I cant get anything done for answering the phone. Any ideas how to get her to stop this while her activities are on hold?

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I never knew that a private phone line is required in an AL facility. I regret giving my Mom the courtesy of a private phone in her NH room. I have had the same experience with her this past month (a new development) 28 calls in 45 minutes to my cell. All billed for 1 min each - but she must have hung up each time she got the voicemail box. I visited her last night, and while she was in the bathroom, I took the phone away completely, and left. I have not heard from her today - she could have called me from the Nurses's station - or she doesn't realize it's gone yet. She has been in the habit of hiding the phone in her night table drawer.
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I could not get my 69 yo sister to stop answering the phone. She lived 2 hocks from Mother and mother would call constantly, even if my sister told her she was bathing. Mother would call her several times, when she was out at supper. Then, my sister would call me and complain.

I would say "Do not answer the phone." "Leave the phone in the car." Etc.

My sister was totally disabled from RA and I am sure that the stress killed her. She was buried one day before her 70th birthday. As for mother, she will be 96 and is living happily ever after in the NH. She does not call me and she cannot hear, any more.
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My father also incessantly calls me when I am at work and on the weekends with the same message every time. I now put my cell phone on silent and that does help, but when I see how many times he has called, it makes my heart sink. I know that he is fine in the AL, but it is still painful. Thank you for sharing your ideas.
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She probably does not remember the calls. Answer the phone once a day, and tell her you are not going to be available when at work. If she calls you at work, dump it to voicemail. Take one call a day, at home and ignore the rest. If she is pestering the neighbors, tell her you will disconnect the phone, and do just that if she persists. You need to set boundaries, and stick to them.
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When I went away to college in the late 80s, my mother would call my dorm room incessantly until I talked to her in person. (I'm an only child.) Drove me and my roommates crazy, but she didn't care. If she didn't talk to me every single day at least twice she would go into an anxiety attack. She became infamous for it. She had never been to college herself and had no concept of classes, labs, library time, social time, or anything else that can keep a student out of their room, so of course I must be in constant peril. Thank heavens that was before we all had cell phones! It was miserable, so I really feel for you. When I moved away to get married and started my family, she insisted on barging in by phone when I was in active labor in the hospital. She got mad because I wouldn't talk to her between contractions. She called and called and called until I had the phone cut off in that room and had my husband leave strict orders at the unit's desk that we really did mean NO PHONE CALLS.

I'm probably going to be in your shoes in the upcoming year or two. Maybe sooner. After enough therapy about my own mom, I took away that you have to give yourself permission to enforce your own boundaries. It's perfectly acceptable to have these boundaries and to put controls in place that enforce them. E.g., my mom STILL calls me all the time, but now she can't remember she already did. I answer when I can. If I can't - I don't. This is not me being a naughty child. This is me being a responsible adult who has many competing demands for my time including my obligations to my employer, my family, and myself.

I think you need to change your phone number. Seriously. I mean it. I would/will when necessary. Not to hide from her, but to preserve your grown up sanity which does have a very high value. You also need to have an arrangement with those neighbors she calls if she can't get you. They might need to have her phone number blocked. It sounds mean, but it isn't. This is unacceptable behavior, she isn't going to quit it because she can't, so other solutions need to come up. Like somebody else said, see if the facility can block all outbound calls except to the emergency line.
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This may not work for everyone but when my mom started doing this I finally started telling her, after the third or fourth call, that she had used up all her calls for that day. She would still call back a couple of times, and I would just remind her, Mom, I'm sorry, but you have already used up all your calls and hang up. This actually worked. On a side issue, I would be very concerned about the elevator situation at the assisted living facility; do they have patients on upper floors that could be trapped in the event of fire without this elevator? If so, they need to be reported. This cannot go on.
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Rustydee, you are going to have to get creative to claim your sanity back.
Don't answer the phone just because it's ringing. You can control this much.
You have to put boundaries in place and honor them yourself.....or you will be in the home next door to mom!
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Have you checked with the AL facility to see if they have a way to handle the problem? If she has a phone in her apartment, I wonder if they have a way to stop her from making anything but emergency calls to the office. Frequent phone calls are often a problem with dementia, so there may be something in place at the facility to keep it from happening.
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maybe try recording a week or two or three of young and restless, if she has a player of some sort. Then she can watch all day long. With the dementia, she won't remember she saw that episode before....
LOL.....
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We take away the car keys when it's not safe to drive. We take away the kitchen knives when it's not safe anymore. A phone is another tool useful to people who understand the boundaries and how to use it. When the understanding isn't there, the phone isn't a good idea anymore. If you can't control the phone on her end, you can control your end.

I have parental controls on my kids' phones through AT&T. I can block all activity between certain hours. I can block specific numbers. My phone has a "do not disturb" setting separate from AT&T. If your phone is a cell phone, look into the controls your service provider offers, and think outside the box. I wouldn't know about the AT&T ones if I didn't have kids because they're called SmartLimits or Parental Controls. When the time comes, I can setup blocks on *my* phone to limit access during certain hours as needed.
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