Tablet For Seniors With Dementia

Why We Love It

If youre on a T-Mobile plan already, the Alcatel GO FLIP 3 is our go-to phone for seniors with dementia because it has the best battery life of the cell phones we researched. With nearly eight hours of talk time and 17 days of standby time, this phone has you covered if you forget to recharge it for a day or two. Great battery life is a huge plus for seniors with dementia, who not only need continuous access to a phone with monitoring features to prevent or help with emergencies, but who may simply forget to charge their cell phones.

The Alcatel GO FLIP 3 also has voice navigation with Google Assistant, so loved ones who struggle with buttons can easily ask the phone to call someone, send a text, or pull up a specific feature with just their voice.

Alcatel GO FLIP 3

Pros

Cons

• No dedicated medical alert app

How Is A Tablet Helpful

When you need a device that is light, portable, and keeps you connected then a tablet is a great choice. You can choose from many different types from the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy, or Amazon Fire . You will find many benefits from having one within reach, including but not limited to tablets are:

• Lightweight and easy to carry in the house or on the go.
• Portable and easily fit within a carrying bag, backpack, or handbag.
• Connected to Wi-Fi and wireless data just like a cellphone.
• Easy to turn on and off with an easy wake-up feature.
• Often more affordable than a laptop but with many of the same features.
• Great entertainment for the whole family.
• Perfect for staying socially engaged and connected with friends and family.
• Excellent for web browsing and watching videos.
• Good for your aging brain to remain active and healthy.
• Great cameras for taking lots of photos.
• Easy to navigate for emails and general communication.
• The tool for telehealth check-ins and other health services.
• Easy access to all social media platforms.

The tablet can be very important as a way to remain connected for aging adults. Being able to have a portable screen for Facetime or Zoom calls will keep the family as one no matter the distance. This social engagement is essential as it relates to your brain health and overall wellbeing.

Find A Device That You Feel Capable Of Setting Up Without Difficulty

Device setup is important when purchasing a tablet for a senior. Buyers will want the device to be intuitive and easy for the senior in their life to use as this will limit the possibility of confusion and encourage active use of the device. The caregiver or the end-user of a tablet should be confident in their ability to set up such a device after purchasing it, and without undue time burden.

Setup of a new tablet involves multiple actions, such as determining easy-to-remember passwords, saving fingerprints for easy login, arranging the home screen to be as intuitive as possible, and turning on any assistive features that may be needed, such as enlarged or high-contrast text or text-to-speech screen readers. If you need help understanding what settings youll need to take care of to get a new tablet user-ready, multiple guides are available online for how to set up a mobile device specifically for a senior.

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Helping With Memory And Recall

Favourite music and songs, film clips, old pictures, family photos and videos can all help to trigger important memories and reminiscences for someone with dementia, and may also help them to relax.

The internet now offers many possibilities for accessing relevant media and content for example, through streaming music services or video channels .

It is quite easy now to put together your own personal music playlists, photo albums, slideshows and home movies using widely available software and apps for computers, tablets and smartphones. Digital photoframes can also be programmed to play a slideshow that may help to stimulate memories and conversation with others.

An increasing number of apps are becoming available to enhance users experience of accessing and recording personal memories. These include:

• Memory box contains visuals and music for stimulating memories and conversation about famous events, people, places and topics from the 20th century that you can also save in a personal scrapbook.
• GreyMatters creates an interactive life storybook using visual reminiscence paired with music and games to preserve old memories and video record new ones.
• Playlist for Life makes the experience of searching for music and creating a playlist as simple as possible. It helps you track down the music that holds the strongest memories and gives access to more than 100 ready-made playlists of the top songs from the past century.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 80

• Performance can sometimes be sluggish

With its slim, comfortable body and minimized bezel, the extremely affordable Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 makes viewing any content easy and enjoyable. An 8-inch display allows full immersion with movies, TV shows, or shopping experiences, while dual speakers deliver surround sound. Users can store their favorite songs, photos, or videos with 32GB of built-in memory and expand storage by up to 512GB with a microSD card. You can even pick up a bundle from Amazon which includes a 32GB microSD card, for a few dollars more .

The tablets lightweight design sports a metallic finish to make it easy to tote around the house or around town. Everything is accomplished for up to 13 hours on a single full charge.

• Expensive monthly subscription

The GrandPad is designed for the over-75 market in that it seeks to simplify the operations necessary to connect the elderly with their loved ones. It features an intuitive interface with large buttons for video chatting. The tablet accompanies a comprehensive subscription service which starts from $68 per month that includes the device, a protective case, charging cradle, and stylus. User preferences and contacts are preloaded in the tablet, so it’s immediately ready to use.

GrandPad also comes with 24-hour personalized support. The red “help” button on the tablet connects users directly to highly-trained customer support members for assistance.

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How To Choose A Tablet For Your Elderly Relative

Ask yourself these questions as you browse tablets for seniors:

Is eyesight a concern? Large displays, adjustable text size, screen contrast, and brightness are all features to consider for seniors with vision trouble. For those with greater vision impairment, try a tablet with a voice assistant, or one that offers speech-to-text functionality.

Are they looking for ease of use, or all the bells and whistles? Tablets designed specifically for seniors like the GrandPad are often lower-tech and easier to use. Others that are voice activated and offer home assistants like Alexa, Google, or Cortana allow older adults to circumnavigate learning the ins-and-outs of a device. But if your loved one is tech-savvy or willing to learn, theyll likely benefit from a more complex tablet.

Will they use the tablet often? If your aging relative prefers their laptop or a paper book the tablet may spend most of its time in a drawer. Consider primary uses: Will they tote it while traveling, or keep it on the counter for video chats with the grandkids? Purchase according to the features you think theyll enjoy most.

Do they have trouble with hearing? Many tablets are compatible with hearing aids, meaning seniors can use Bluetooth to connect their existing hearing aids with the tablets audio. Others require special adapters. If youre in doubt, contact your hearing aid provider for advice.

Tips For Making Tablets Easier To Use

There are a few things you can do to make the device easier to use for you or your elderly parent.

• Keep it as simple as possible. Delete any apps they wont be using.
• Set the icons to be large and easy to recognize video calls, messages, photos, music, browser, news, weather and other commonly used apps.
• There are special tablet apps for elderly that can be installed on any type of device, like Oscar App for example. It changes the appearance making it very simple to use and also allows you to access the tablet remotely if your parent gets stuck while using. There are others like it but this one is free of charge.
• You can buy a basic tablet for elderly like the GrandPad reviewed above which by default has very simple and straightforward functions but unlike other tablets you have to pay a monthly subscription for everything to work.
• Other things worth considering are a screen protector and a case both for protecting your device and making it easier to hold.
• Also, you can install a tracking app on the device, which can be useful since some seniors might misplace it.

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Best Buy Customers Often Prefer The Following Products When Searching For Tablets For Seniors

The best tablets for seniors to use are those that are easy to read, have good battery life, and are easy to use. There are many different types of tablets on the market today, and it can be difficult to choose the right one. Here are some of the most popular tablets available today.

Skill Gaps For Seniors With Tablets

As with any technology, there may be some fears about using something new or seeing the value in it. As we have described the value and health benefits above, consider the areas to help your aging parent adjust to using any tablet they select. Consider some of the following common concerns:

My aging parentâ¦

Has a hard time seeing the video on their smartphone. The tablet has a convenient larger screen making it easier to have video calls.

Is skeptical about using a computer to play games, read or do a puzzle.The tabletâs touch screen and zoom feature will help your aging parent be comfortable using the many fun features and remain active.

Has a difficult time typing.The tablet has many navigation tools to assist aging adults with built-in speak-to-text features, as well as a keyboard to attach if typing on the screen is more challenging.

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The Case For A Regular Tablet

In our opinion, the products known as “senior tablets” are excellent choices in a variety of situations, such as those above.

However, we think that there are many older adults who are much better off with a mainstream consumer tablet . Here are some of the reasons why we prefer a conventional tablet for people who don’t fit the life situations we describe above as especially suited to a senior tablet.

Personalized Support For Seniors

The company has a designated member experience agent assigned to each GrandPad user. This is a real person, not a chat bot or email help or worse yet, an email support system. The member experience agent offers much more than tech support and can begin to build a relationship with individual GrandPad users.

The company agents have been known to even play games on the GrandPad tablet with users in order to get the acquainted to the device. This type of advanced customer service makes the device incredibly unique. To make it even easier, the senior can call customer service directly from the GrandPad by simply pressing the red Help button.

The company has 24/7/365 support with locations in several cities across the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

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Tablets For Seniors With Dementia

• onOctober 9, 2013

Seniors with dementia often struggle with technology. Electronics can be confusing, which leads to frustration that can cause distress and outbursts. Many caregivers, spouses, children etc, often avoid technology in the household for this reason. Tablets, however, seem to be positively received by seniors with dementia. I have come across a lot of online reviews and blogs singing the praises of tablet computers. Here are the top reasons why theyre great:

• The design is very simple. There is no overwhelm of buttons, screens, wires, etc. Just a simple rectangle.
• It can do everything. Think of how many devices you can replace with a tablet that has : video, ebooks, games, photos, email, music.
• There are a few memory apps on the market specifically for users with dementia.
• They can be easily carried around. With the use of memory apps and photo albums, there seems to be a good advantage to using a tablet to stimulate memory so being able to always have it when visiting people, for example, is a good tool.
• The software is friendly. You can spend a small amount of time downloading some apps for your senior loved one, and then theyre good to go.

Have you had any experience with a tablet for someone with dementia? Were interested to hear your results and favourite apps!

Microsoft Surface Pro 6 Tablet For Seniors

• Not great for use in lap

The Microsoft Surface Pro 6 blurs the line between laptop and tablet by allowing you to attach a keyboard and stylus to the device. It also runs on the Windows 10 operating system, which may be more familiar to you than other tablet operating systems. If youre undecided between a tablet or laptop for seniors, then why not just get both in the same package with the Surface Pro 6? Also, you wont have to worry about sacrificing power or performance going this route. The Surface Pro 6 carries a powerful quad-core processor inside to make everything tick without a problem.

Like many other premium tablets, the Surface Pro 6 features an all-metal body for added durability and a premium level of aesthetics. Youll also get a whopping 12.3-inch display with an impressive 2736 x 1824 pixel resolution quality. The display is bright and colorful, and it competes for the best display quality available on the market today. We were also impressed by the performance of the accessories, including the keyboard and stylus. The keyboard is comfortable and the stylus operates incredibly smoothly for a great user experience. We do wish the Surface Pro 6 featured a few more connectivity ports, including a USB-C port, but whats currently still works fine for the most part. Its a great option if youre specifically looking for the best tablets with keyboards.

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Price And Wireless Service

The price of the RAZ Memory Cell Phone is $349.00 and works on all major wireless providers, including Verizon, AT& T, T-Mobile, Consumer Cellular, Mint Mobile, Affinity Cellular and others compatible networks. The phone is unlocked. In other words, the user can select his or her wireless provider and plan. Currently, the phone comes with a free SIM card and three free months of service from either MINT Mobile or Affinity Cellular.

Service Plans & Costs

Even in the case where the manufacturer allows you to use your own tablet , you still must pay a monthly services fee for the video chat and curated apps and the cellular connection. Some manufacturers allow you to bundle the purchase cost of the tablet and monthly fee into a single monthly payment.

As of December 2020 when we prepared this article, the monthly fees for the products ranged from $49 / month to $10 / month, with the Oscar Family being notably cheaper than the other two products.

• See the websites of the vendors for specific pricing, and be careful to take into account the costs of the tablet as well as of the services when you compare. Also take into account whether the costs of the cellular connection are included or not in the monthly fee.

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