Their phone, tablet & computer
The phone that served your person for forty years can quietly turn on them: scam calls, popup ads, an update that moves everything overnight. This page sets up the devices they already own: the rules that fit every device first, then the exact switches for yours. Tap your device in the chips below to jump straight there. Everything here is a free setting. Check things off as you go; the list remembers.
How screens hit differently now
New caregivers are often told to watch the stove and the stairs, and nobody mentions the tablet. But a brain that is losing judgment and working memory experiences a screen differently, and knowing how explains every item below:
- Ads stop reading as ads. The ability to tell an ad from a message goes early. Researchers and families report that people with dementia click ads unfailingly, and a popup after a puzzle can cause real panic. This is why every app should be the paid, ad-free version. The apps page only lists those.
- Every notification reads as a command. A red badge is not a hint to them; it is an unfinished obligation that nags like an alarm. Silence is a feature.
- Motion costs more than it used to. Things that slide, bounce, and auto-play destabilize a person with cognitive impairment measurably more than a healthy person of the same age. Calm screens are kind screens.
- Passwords stop being bumps and become walls. A login prompt or a two-factor code isn't friction for them; it is a locked door with no key. Anything they still use should open without asking anything of them.
- An update rearranges the kitchen overnight. What survives longest in dementia is muscle memory: the thumb knows where the phone icon lives long after the name for it is gone. When an update moves or restyles the icons, the phone is "broken," and the confidence loss is real. You will manage updates from now on; there's a section below.
- Scammers know all of this. People over 60 are far more likely to be taken by a popup "tech support" scam, and a cognitively impaired person is the target these operations are built for. The single most protective change on this page is making the phone stop ringing for strangers.
Three questions before you change anything
Skip the stage labels and ask what is actually true this month:
- Can they still learn a small new thing? If yes, change as little as possible and add guardrails behind the scenes. Every change you make spends some of their confidence.
- Does your person get lost in the middle of tasks? Opens the phone, forgets why; taps into a menu and can't get back. Then simplifying is the kindness: fewer choices, one path, nothing that moves.
- Does the screen upset them more than it helps? Agitation after using it, distress at the news, endless anxious scrolling. Then the goal shifts: the device becomes yours to run, and what reaches them is only what soothes.
One change at a time, made quietly, never as a demonstration of what they can't do. Keep what still works exactly where it is. If they ask, keep it simple and true: "I was tidying it up. It's all where you need it." Dignity first; settings second. (When a moment seems to need more bending than that, Am I lying to them? takes the question to Scripture.)
The rules for every device
These apply to any phone, tablet, or computer in the house. The exact switches live in your device's own section below (the chips at the top of the page jump straight to yours). Each item carries a small tag: guardrail means they'll never notice it, simplify hard means it visibly changes the device, for when menus have become mazes.
- Save every number that matters, first. Doctor, pharmacy, family, neighbors, the plumber. Everything below that silences strangers depends on the real people being saved.
- Strangers ring silent. Unsaved callers go to voicemail instead of ringing. This one change kills most phone scams, and nothing real is lost. Your device's section has the switch.
- Turn on the phone carrier's free scam blocker. Works on any phone, set up once on the carrier's website or app: AT&T ActiveArmor, Verizon Call Filter, T-Mobile Scam Shield (or just dial #662# on T-Mobile).
- Make everything bigger. Text, pointer, buttons. Squinting is fatigue nobody needs, and every device has the sliders; paths below.
- You own the updates now. Updates rearrange the kitchen overnight, so they happen when you choose, with you there, and afterward you put every icon back where their hands remember it. The update trap section below explains why this matters so much.
- Paid, ad-free versions only. A person losing judgment cannot tell an ad from a message and will tap it. A few dollars once beats one scam popup at the wrong moment. The apps page lists only ad-free choices.
- Schedule quiet evenings. Notifications at dusk are fuel on sundowning. Every device can silence itself on a schedule; see the sleep page for the rest of the evening plan.
- Money guardrails and the family code word. Bank alerts to your phone, a trusted-contact request at their bank, and one shared word that defeats the cloned-voice "grandchild in trouble" call. The money page has all three.
- Freeze the home screen. Four to six things, everything else removed or hidden, and then the picture never changes again: same wallpaper, same spots. Recognition is doing the work now.
- Set up backup access while it's easy. Ten minutes now can spare the family a legal fight for the photos later. Apple and Google each have their own version; paths below.
iPhone & iPad: the exact switches
- Silence strangers: Settings → Apps → Phone → Screen Unknown Callers → Silence. On older iPhones the switch is called Silence Unknown Callers. Silenced calls still reach voicemail.
- Bigger everything: Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size, and Display Zoom → Larger Text. Even bigger: Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size.
- Take over updates: Settings → General → Software Update → Automatic Updates → off.
- Medical ID for first responders: Health app → profile picture → Medical ID; add conditions and emergency contacts and turn on Show When Locked.
- Backup access: Settings → your name → Sign-In & Security → Legacy Contact.
- Quiet evenings: Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb → Set a Schedule.
- Lock the store: Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions → on; under iTunes & App Store Purchases set purchases and deleting apps to Don't Allow. Then Screen Time → Lock Screen Time Settings with a passcode that is yours, not theirs.
- One-app mode for the one app that still delights: Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access → on. Open the app, triple-click the side button to start; triple-click and your passcode to end.
- Simplify the whole phone: Assistive Access (Settings → Accessibility → Assistive Access) turns the entire iPhone into a few huge, calm buttons for Calls, Photos, Camera, Messages. Apple built it to be set up by a caregiver, with its own passcode so it stays simplified.
- Auto-answer your calls: Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Call Audio Routing → Auto-Answer Calls. The phone answers by itself after a few seconds. It answers for anyone, so pair it with Screen Unknown Callers above, and talk it over with them and the family first.
Android & Samsung: the exact switches
- Silence strangers: Phone app → three dots → Settings → Caller ID and spam → turn on Filter spam calls. Newer Pixels do this through Call Screen instead. Filtered calls still land in voicemail and call history.
- Bigger everything: open Settings and search Font size, then Display size. Menus vary by maker; the search box always finds them.
- Updates, honestly: stock Android has no reliable off switch for system updates. Plan the other way: when the phone asks to restart, be the one who does it, then check the icons are still where their hands remember.
- Backup access: Google's Inactive Account Manager, set on the web at myaccount.google.com/inactive.
- Quiet evenings: Settings → Modes → Do Not Disturb (older Android: Settings → Sound → Do Not Disturb) and set the schedule inside.
- Lock the store: Play Store → profile icon → Settings → Family → Parental controls with a PIN, and under Payments & subscriptions → Purchase verification, require it always.
- Simpler whole phone (Samsung): Settings → Display → Easy mode. Bigger icons, simpler layout, same phone. Try this before anything heavier.
- One-app mode: called App pinning: Settings → Security → App pinning (Samsung: Settings → Security and privacy → More security settings → Allow apps to be pinned). Unpinning can require the PIN.
Windows PC & Mac: the computer
- Windows, bigger text and pointer: Settings → Accessibility → Text size (slider), and Accessibility → Mouse pointer and touch for a big, colored pointer.
- Windows, block mystery installs: make their account a standard account (Settings → Accounts → Other users). Installing anything then requires your admin password, which stops the "free PC cleaner" a popup insisted on.
- Windows, scam-page warnings: Microsoft Edge's SmartScreen is on by default and now also blocks full-screen "your computer is infected" takeovers. Just confirm nobody switched it off: Edge Settings → Privacy → Security.
- Mac, read anything at any size: System Settings → Accessibility → Hover Text: hold Command and anything under the pointer appears huge. Also Accessibility → Zoom.
- Mac, honest note on accounts: a standard Mac account still can install apps (Apple's own rule), so it won't stop downloads the way Windows does. If installs are the problem on a Mac, use Screen Time's content and purchase restrictions instead.
- Any browser: Chrome's Safe Browsing is on by default and warns about scam pages; its Enhanced mode warns in real time. Confirm it's on: Chrome Settings → Privacy and security → Safe Browsing.
When the screen is yours to run: late stage
Late in the disease the device stops being theirs and becomes one of your caregiving tools. That is not a loss to mourn; it is the same screen doing gentler work.
- Music, on your cue. The response to familiar music outlasts nearly everything. A playlist from their teens and twenties, played at the hard hours you already know are coming. The activities page explains why this works and how to build the playlist.
- Photos as a slideshow, not an app. A tablet on a stand, cycling family photos, no touching required. An old phone can retire into this job permanently.
- Video calls you place and answer. With Auto-Answer on (above) and strangers silenced, a call from you or the grandkids simply appears. Nobody has to find a green button.
- If the phone itself is now the obstacle, there are phones and frames built for exactly this stage, with one button or none. The supplies page covers them under "Staying in touch," honestly, with prices.
The update trap
It deserves its own warning because it undoes months of your work in one night. Muscle memory is the last skill standing: the hand knows the phone icon is bottom-left long after the word "phone" is gone. An update that moves icons, restyles buttons, or adds a new gesture doesn't feel like a change to them; it feels like the phone broke, and sometimes like they broke it.
- Do updates yourself, on your schedule, never overnight by surprise. iPhone lets you turn automatic installs off (path in its section above); Android mostly doesn't, so be there for the restart and put anything that moved back.
- After every update, check the home screen against a photo of it you keep on your own phone. Thirty seconds, and the kitchen is back the way their hands left it.
- Resist the upgrade. A new phone "as a gift" is a whole new world to relearn at the worst possible time. The old, slow, familiar phone is the better phone now. If the battery is dying, replace the battery.
"No real company calls you about a virus." "Nobody legitimate is paid in gift cards." The FTC is blunt about both: real businesses and government agencies never demand gift cards, and real tech companies don't cold-call about your computer. And third: "Never let a stranger control the screen." If a caller asks them (or you) to install a remote-control app, that call is the scam, every time. If money already moved, report it the same day: ic3.gov or the National Elder Fraud Hotline, 833-372-8311. Shame delays reporting; speed recovers money.
If the screen starts costing more than it gives
Watch for the turn: agitated after using it, frightened by the news, caught in anxious loops at 3am, or distressed by ads and popups they can no longer judge. When the screen reliably upsets, retiring it is care, not defeat.
- Subtract, don't confiscate. The tablet "goes to its charger" in another room and visits for photos and music. The phone "is being fixed" and a simpler one stands in. The same dignity moves that work for the car keys work here.
- Replace what the screen was doing. If it filled empty hours, the real fix is on the activities page: hands, music, jobs. The screen was a symptom.
- Keep the one good channel. Even when everything else goes, a photo slideshow and a playlist almost always still give more than they take.