Does anybody make a calendar like this?

[Mark Thorson]

Does anyone make a calendar that automatically
advances to the next day? I don't mean a digital
clock/calendar that displays something like 04-26-12.
I mean something that looks like a paper calendar
that you'd hang on your wall, preferably with a
surface like a whiteboard so appointments and things
can be marked on it.

[Lynn Lynn]

Either I am confused or it is too early in the morning!!


I am trying to understand how a monthly wall calendar can advance to the
next day.

I just use a regular paper calendar and write my appointments on it.

I know there are whiteboard calendars but I don't understand the
"advancing to the next day" part.

Thanks.

Lynn

[Lynn Lynn]

OK....after my morning coffee I realized what you are looking for.


I've seen phone apps similar to what you are looking for but, of course,
no place to write on them.

You might just try any very large office supply store but, most likely,
would be something you would have to purchase online.

Will let you know if I come across anything like that.

Lynn

[Mary Gordon]

Hi Mark, if you are hoping to use this to prompt someone with AD who
is living on their own, it may not help much. Keep in mind that early
on, their understanding of sequences goes, so they no longer
understand that 3 is bigger than 2, that January is before June, that
the day after Tuesday is Wednesday, that Channel 5 is after Channel 4
on the dial. This is why they start having extreme difficulties with
money, with a calendar, and with telling time. On top of that, they
have no short term memory so they get a prompt and immediately forget
it, or forget if they have already done the item, like take a pill.

As you probably also know, reading and comprehending what you read are
two completely different skills. Far into the illness, for example, my
mother in law could read text out loud, but couldn't understand what
she read. You could demonstrate this by giving her text and asking her
to read it and do what it said (i.e. pick up the red hat on the table
and put it on your head).

I've told the story here about how we went on holiday and pre packed
my mother in laws pills into envelopes marked with the day of the
week. I called her first thing to open the correct envelope, and three
more times when it was time to take another pill. She opened all the
envelopes, mixed up all the pills, overdosed, and we had to rush back
from holiday to take her to hospital.

Before we really had experience with AD, we did try all kinds of signs
and notes as reminders, even posted daily on our frequent visits when
she was still living on her own, and none of it worked.

Mary

[Mark Thorson]

Post by Mary Gordon
Hi Mark, if you are hoping to use this to prompt someone with AD who
is living on their own, it may not help much. Keep in mind that early
on, their understanding of sequences goes, so they no longer
understand that 3 is bigger than 2, that January is before June, that
the day after Tuesday is Wednesday, that Channel 5 is after Channel 4
on the dial. This is why they start having extreme difficulties with
money, with a calendar, and with telling time. On top of that, they
have no short term memory so they get a prompt and immediately forget
it, or forget if they have already done the item, like take a pill.

She's nowhere near that, but she has a little trouble
remembering which day of the week it is. She's usually
off by one day.

[Mary Gordon]

Mark wrote: > She's nowhere near that, but she has a little trouble

remembering which day of the week it is.  She's usually
off by one day.

Mary replies: Well, we don't normally grill our loved ones on every
day things we assume they can do. You might want to test it out - i.e.
give her a calendar and ask her to show you what day it is, then ask
her to show you tomorrow or yesterday, and then perhaps a week from
today. Ask her if this month is April, what was last month? What will
next month be? Draw a circle and put 12 at the top and ask her to
write the numbers around the edge like a clock face. Or give her the
circle with the numbers on it and ask her to put hands on it to show 3
pm. Ask her what time an hour later would be or an hour earlier.

Before my mother in law was diagnosed, she broke her hip and had to go
to a rehab hospital. They wanted her to track her own medications, so
they made a chart with the days of the week across the top, and times
to take the pills down the side, and she was supposed to check off
when she took her pills. Couldn't do it. Couldn't understand the
matrix and the sequence. At the time, if you met her in a social
situation, you would have thought she was totally fine.

It wasn't until we figured out that sequences were a problem early on
that we started surreutittiously testing her to see what she could do.
Even if she knew what day of the week it was, that didn't mean she
could really use a calendar or a clock. They often lose their sense of
the passage of time early on, in part because of the short term memory
deficits, and it's very hard for them to estimate how long things take
and back up those times to plan their day. For example, if they know
they have an appointment at 9 am, they can't always figure out what
they have to do (i.e. get up at 7, have breakfast and a bath which
will take an hour, get dressed and call the cab by 8:15, be ready for
pick up at 8:40 because it takes 15 minutes to get there, blah blah.
Multitasking goes out the window when you can't estimate how long
things take you know when to start to so everything happens at the
right time.

[Lynn Lynn]

Everything you post is so true.


There were so many little hints that Mom's mind was going and I just
attributed it to "old age". (She was 90 at the time.) She got where
she could not balance her check book and yet only wrote about two checks
a month. She called the maintenance man at her apartment because the
toilet wouldn't stop running when, in fact, it was the exhaust fan she
had turned on. She called me because her TV remote wasn't working. She
just forgot which button to push. She forgot how to turn on her stove.
That is when I taped all the dials down as she normally only used her
microwave anyway.

"People" were coming in her kitchen at night and a man sat on her couch
She was going to ask maintenance to change her locks until I stayed with
her one night and told her I asked them to leave. Of course, they kept
coming back.

When I brought her to live with me she kept asking why her Mom & Dad
dropped her off ad never came back because she wanted to go home. After
telling her a couple of times they were long gone I finally just kept
telling her they were coming tomorrow. And, of course, tomorrow she
asked the same thing.

She had a "little dog" that sat on her bed and got upset if I
accidentally knocked him off.

She thought I was a helper at my house (not her daughter). That is the
part that hurt me the most.

Oh my, no one can understand what a caregiver goes through until they
experience it, can they?

If nothing else, I hope our posts can help someone understand the mind
of an Alzheimer's/dementia patient.

Lynn