Perhaps this will work???

The stress of the memory disappearing is very hard on all of us. It's hard on me because I have just told her something 10 minutes ago, and if she wasn't really paying attention or listening intently, it's gone.  Explaining insurance benefit papers, explaining bank statements, explaining how things work, i.e. phones are exhausting. I purchased a new phone for her on Thursday. The old phone was a cordless phone with an on and off button. The buttons were very close to each other and her fingers rarely hit the right button. She cannot see the GREEN ON and the RED OFF buttons, because of her failing eyesight.  Frustration on her part was high when she used the phone, because she said she couldn't see to call people or frequently got the wrong number. The numbers in her phone book that I filled in are too small to read she complains.  So I bought her a desk phone with BIG NUMBERS and you just pick it up and lay it down to end the call.  Does this please her? No! She doesn't like to admit she can't use the cordless phone, can't admit someone thought of her and her life would be easier.  By the time you get done explaining she has forgotten the first part of the explanation and you must start over... Comprehension levels are low.  We watch movies and she loses the plot as it moves along. Only the most mundane movies are good ones for her.  She used to love mysteries on TV but she cant follow the story line and gets the characters get confused. " who is that? what are they doing? why are they there?"   I feel badly for her she doesn't remember movies, books or people. She cannot talk on the phone coherently because the words just don't come to her when she needs them.. She can't remember who she was calling if you interrupt her. She cannot finish a sentence if you interrupt her train of thought. It's not easy for her to endure. Course the 15 1/2 isn't patient either. She has her own issues with pms and gets frustrated when her grandmother won't let her help her. She wants to keep her safe and out of trouble and make things easier but mother sees it as taking her independence. She sees it as someone taking the only things that she is still capable of doing away from her. She doesn't do her own medicine anymore, she doesn't know what she takes or when.
So we went to the dr this week and he made a great suggestion. She doesn't believe us often when we say things happen or when we say we told you this previously.  She gets very angry when we insist that yes we did. The Dr. suggested her to write things down and we added a date to things so that she will know that the event happened.  So far we have written 4 things and she writes them, dates them, and they will be kept on a legal pad, so when we have a dispute she can refer to the list. I hope it helps.  Nothing contributes more to all of our frustrations than this issue.. sighs