Incessant calling

[Smc4]

Hello
I've not posted on this topic before but have found all your posts very helpful. Thank you.
My dad was diagnosed dementia and Alzheimer's this year and is living semi independently in sheltered accommodation. He has frequent falls. He's been widowed for decades sadly, and has been difficult to be around. He is very very lonely. It's horribly sad. He is calling me and my husband (and my siblings) sometimes 10+ times a day each. I can only visit once a fortnight as I live away with my teenage family (exam years). He has no concept of working hours and just calls. It's driving us all mad. If we do pick up his calls he is sad sad sad and it's just awful for him but it's awful for us too.
How has anyone dealt with the forgetful and endless calling? I don't know if he forgets he's spoken to us or just has no filter anymore and thinks it's just fine to ring all evening when I'm trying to parent my 3 kids after work!

I should imagine your pearls are all over the floor now, are they not ?

OP, Sheltered Housing is oftimes populated by the ‘we keep ourselves to ourselves’ booming tv, AC visitwhenever residents.
Your poor old Dad should be in a more caring environment of course.
There is, as ever, some good advice on here, good luck.

I’m sure there’s more to this re. your marriage but on the face of it this is incredibly sad.

Blocking the calls of your parents is not an act of desperation. My comment was not a response to the OP whom I have nothing but complete empathy for having been in a similar situation. For the record my parents both had dementia, and one was of the good fortune to live within close proximity enabling myself too provide the support they required. I aided and cared for my parents until their needs could not be met at home and they had to be moved to a care setting that could cope with their needs. I was aghast at the comment to block their parents phone number's, as in my experience doing so would increase their anxiety and increase the risk of wandering and falls let alone the detriment to their psychological state. I apologise if my comment appeared nasty I was shocked in what I had read.

How incredibly rude are you!

Tbh, despite me being my neglectful father's carer, because Social Work coerced me into it, there's just no way I would have blocked his calls. He used to get so anxious if I didn't pick up his calls and he did forget we'd already had the same conversation multiple times that day. It was incredibly stressful and I felt desperate at times but I couldn't have blocked his calls as that would have exacerbated his dementia distress. I will say I felt relief when the calls stopped when he was taken into a care home as an emergency on Christmas Eve and his phone got lost in the home shortly after. I could sleep without being incessantly called for the first time in a long time. I also agree a lot of these problems adult children are dealing with is because no Govt, left or right, has done what they all say they will - sorry I will have to shout here - FIX THE CARE SYSTEM AND DON'T SAY IT WILL TAKE 10 YEARS TO DO SO. The current "system" blights lives and makes people who could be "economically active" (in the current terminology) have to give up working because they're exhausted, stressed out their box, jumping in anxiety at the sound of their phone because it's mostly their relative phoning yet again or Social Work phoning for you to sort out another problem, or a utility company, the doctor's, the Council, or whoever giving you another problem to sort out between you working, caring for grandchildren, doing laundry, making meals, renewing your car insurance, MOT etc etc etc. In short, the system needs sorted NOW but I still couldn't have blocked my father's phone overnight. For one, I'd have missed the call in the middle of the night from hospital where he'd been taken after a neighbour found him behind his unlocked door acting incoherently