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Ok so my mom has a smorgasbord of heath issues, from stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, anxiety, depression, and early dementia. She lives on her phone and cruises through Facebook because she is home-bound and bored. She doesn’t go out and refuses to help herself. She wants everyone to do things for her instead of taking the steps to do it herself. I got her a smartphone and introduced her to Facebook with good intentions. She was struggling with loneliness and managed to reconnect with her old friends. However, she is locked in the past and has trouble with the present so when those friends visited her she spent more time talking about the past instead of seeing them as they are now. The other problem is the stupid spam news that flys around Facebook. Shock stories and stupid conspiracies that she actually thinks are true. She doesn’t have the filters to discern fake from real news. So she calls me all upset about something she read and I have to calm her down. I want to get rid of the phone but I also know she needs a form of communication too. Frustrated in Florida.

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Well, like most situations, there are pros and cons here. If she was lonely and maybe bored before, at least she is entertaining herself. I see she may have gone to far with it, which is easy to do. Not sure what you should do but as you say you really can't take her phone away.

So, we're always worried or annoyed about something with caregiving, right? First, you worried about her loneliness, etc. Now you're worried about too much FB, etc. It's always going to be something, I guess.
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Certain pages can be blocked so she will not avail herself to them. I would review her searches and block those that are causing her distress.
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You can’t just cut her off from the world and take away her phone. How about not answering when she calls and let it go to voicemail? It’s always going to be something. She could watch the nightly news and call you in a panic.
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My mom has depression, anxiety, and mid stage dementia. She's always been a news and politics buff, but had other interests..knitting, painting, and reading.. which have all fallen away. So now, all day long she watches MSNBC. She won't watch anything else. There's nothing we can do about it, as TV is her only way of killing boredom. She claims to be fully independent but has never really figured out how to fuel her own happiness and peace.
Not sure you can do anything about this unless you want to take FB off of her phone. Perhaps let her phone calls go to VM, and remind her as needed to enjoy a pretty day outside, or join a social or therapy group. But when it comes down to it..there's only so much you can do for her. If she doesn't change her outlook before her dementia worsens, she won't have the mind power to help herself. My mom holed herself up for years and never changed. best wishes
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