You have called three times and it has rung out each time. Remember that an elderly parent not answering the phone is, far more often than not, a phone problem and not a parent problem. It is on silent, in the other room, out of charge, or at the bottom of a bag. Work through the ordinary explanations in order, and set yourself a time limit so that calm doesn’t turn into delay.

Start with the boring reasons

Think about your parent’s habits. Do they keep the phone on charge in the bedroom while they sit in the hall? Is the ringer low because the volume buttons are fiddly? Are they at the evening bhajan, or in the middle of a bath, or asleep in front of the television with hearing aids out? Each of these is common and none is an emergency.

If you can, leave a short message and try again in ten minutes. Don’t keep redialling in a run. It doesn’t help, and a phone that buzzes ten times in a minute is easy to give up on.

Try another way to reach them

Send a WhatsApp message and look for the ticks. A single grey tick suggests the phone is off or has no data. Two grey ticks mean it’s on and connected, but unread. Neither tells you more than that, so treat them as hints, not answers.

Then go beyond the phone. Is there a landline? A neighbour, a relative who lives close, the watchman, a friend who usually sits with them? This is why it’s worth having a list of two or three nearby people before you need it. Our post on looking out for a parent who lives alone shows how to set that list up without making a fuss.

What a location app can tell you

If your parent has already agreed to share location with your family in Traxl, you have a few more clues. Under their name you can see how recent the last update is and where they were. If updates have stopped, Traxl asks their phone how it is and shows the likely reason: location switched off, battery saver, a battery that was nearly empty at the last update (so the phone has probably died), or a phone that is off, offline or with the app closed. Traxl can’t tell those last three apart.

Two small buttons help too. You can ring their phone from the app: it plays a loud alarm tone for about nine seconds, which gets through a silenced ringer (a Do Not Disturb setting can still block it). Or you can ask them to check in, and they answer with one tap on “I’m safe” without opening the app. If their last known place was home and the phone has gone quiet, a flat battery is a good guess.

Tip: Not a medical alert

Traxl does not know whether a person is well. A normal-looking dot on a map is not a promise, and Traxl does not call emergency services or an ambulance. If the picture worries you, act on the worry.

When to stop waiting

Decide your limit in advance, ideally together with your parent and the family. Something like: if there is no answer for two hours in the daytime, or by the usual time in the morning, someone goes round. Adjust it to your parent. A person with a heart condition or a recent fall needs a shorter leash than one who is simply bad at charging a phone.

If you are far away, call the neighbour first and ask them to knock and look through the window or door. If you can’t reach anyone and you fear something has happened, contact your local emergency number yourself and tell them where your parent lives. Don’t wait for an app to say it for you.

If you are in another city

Distance is what turns an unanswered call into a long evening. Don’t sit alone with it. Message a sibling so you aren’t both ringing the same number, and agree who calls the neighbour. Say plainly what you know: “I’ve called three times since six and she usually picks up.” Specifics help the person at the door judge how hurried to be.

Make the next time easier

Once you know what happened, don’t scold. “I was worried” works better than “why didn’t you pick up?” Then fix the cause. Move the charger within reach of their chair. Raise the ringtone volume, or ask the doctor or a hearing specialist if hearing is the reason. If the Android phone keeps going silent at night, our guide to why location sharing stops at night covers the battery settings that often cause it, and the walkthrough for a parent’s phone covers the rest.

Traxl is a free Android app for sharing location within a Circle everybody has agreed to join, with a clear note when a phone goes quiet. It can’t reach a parent who has no data or no phone in their hand, and it’s no replacement for a neighbour. Details of what it does are on the features page.