As a caregiver, phone calls relating to your parent can come in any time day or night and you have to be prepared. Instead of relying on the traditional landline telephone in your home (which may well be being used by another member of the family), why not use a cellular phone instead? Consider the following benefits of cellular phones for caregivers:
1) Cellular phones are mobile. Tuck one into your jacket pocket and you are available pretty much any time and anywhere. While coverage areas are improving, you may experience a "dropped call" now and again if you are inside of a building, stairwell or underground parkade. Being readily accessible can provide more peace of mind for a family caregiver.
2) Cellular telephones can be dedicated lines. What I mean by this is, should you choose to share your mobile number within your parent's care circle, you will only get calls on this phone pertaining to your parent's care. Yes, you may answer a wrong number occasionally, but the majority of calls received will be from Mom or Dad's doctor's office, the bank, the drugstore pharmacist and so on.
3) Cellular telephones can include useful calling features. With my mobile phone, I found that both voicemail and call forwarding were well worth the few extra dollars charged per month. With voicemail, even when I was unavailable or outside of the calling service area, someone could still leave a message. An alert would sound when I became available. With call forwarding, I could easily program in another number where I would be for a temporary basis. Callers would be transferred over automatically.
Should you decide to invest in a cell phone for caregiving purposes, exercise some caution. Such phones do come with plenty of optional bells and whistles - these are features which you pay for but never use. Consider airtime packages carefully ... many mobile phones offer free calling for evenings and weekends but charge by the minute during the day. How many calls do you expect to make or receive? Please don't overspend if you don't have to.
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