The New TV

Dad's old TV had conked out.  It always was too big for the room; he'd bought it after Mum's eyesight deteriorated after her second stroke and she needed a large screen.  So I went with him to buy a new one.  It was an entirely rational process: he knew what size he wanted, which shop he was going to get it from; it took him a few moments to choose and arrange delivery.  Nothing in his demeanour in the shop suggested any confusion.  The assistant would not have known he'd been dealing with a dementia sufferer.

It was when I rang up later to make sure it had been delivered that I realised there was a problem.  "That blasted delivery man", Dad complained - "blasted" being the strongest expletive in his vocabulary - "dashed in and out and didn't explain anything.  The picture's marvellous on some channels, on others I can't get a picture at all.  And he said I needed a new part which I'd have to pay for."

I had visions of Dad stomping into the shop and grumbling at customer services about this useless bit of equipment they'd flogged him.  But the missing part that had to be paid for didn't make sense.  Eventually it turned out that he'd thrown away the remote control for his DVD combi player, along with the handset for the old TV, and (obviously) couldn't get the machine to work without it.  The delivery man must have pointed this out, told Dad he would need to buy a new remote; Dad interpreted this to mean that there was part of the TV itself that hadn't been supplied, and for which he ould have to pay extra.

I checked the TV for myself: it works fine, though of course the Freeview channels include some radio stations where all you see on the screen is a logo, and my guess is that these were the ones on which Dad was complaining he couldn't get a picture.

The pace of technological advance can be quite daunting for any old person, but Dad is now losing his grip on fairly basic pieces of information, such as the difference between CD's and DVD's,  Dad, I said calmly, drawing on the kind of patience of which carers need vast reserves in dealing with dementia: how deep are mine, I wonder? - one is just sound, the other is sound and video.  I could not get him to acknowledge that there ever had been a remote for the DVD combi, or to understand why he could not use the TV remote to play videos.  In Dad's mind, the delivery man hadn't done his job properly and was trying to rip him off.  It's not so far from the scenario that plays itself out a dozen times every day on every dementia ward in the world: patient throws something away, or puts it in a safe place, then can't find it and accuses some poor nurse of thieving.