I've got a little Olympus DM-20 digital voice recorder - and I love it!. I took it on holiday to Slovenia, last year, and recorded such things as crickets, church bells, sheep bells and my own musings. On returning home I transferred the the files to my computer (via a USB cable) and then dumped them on to a CD to complement the CD of digital photographs that I took on the same holiday.
I use the same recorder for songs - but plug a little Sony microphone, on a table-top tripod, for that - again, it works fine for my needs.
I suppose that such a device may be a little over the top if you are able to sit the aged relatives in front of the computer - but if you need to record the relative away from the computer - ideal!