Smartphones & Caregivers

Caregiving Made Easier

An article in AARP Magazine entitled These Apps for Caregivers Can Help You Get Organized, Find Support', by Marc Saltzman, discusses how smartphones can help make care giving more manageable. Apps such as genusConnect, CareZone, Caring Village, Lotsa Helping Hands, and Medisafe are all great tools and will help the caregiver address and manage the following situations:

1. The caregiver needs to keep track of doctor visits and other appointments, as well as coordinating transportation among family members and others. The solution is to create a group calendar that all participants can access on their phones. You can enter appointments and assign responsibilities.
2. Sharing caregiver duties with family members and others. This can include who is making home visits each day and offering medication on a particular schedule. The solution is to set up a group to-do list. This can be done with reminders on each participant’s smart phones.
3. The caregiver forgets what specific items a loved one needs from the pharmacy, besides medication. This can include food or personal items from the supermarket or drugstore. It can also include lists of tasks to be accomplished when you visit the patient at his or her home. The solution is to have your phone send specific alerts based on your location.
4. Quickly responding to an emergency is imperative. The solution is to become familiar with your phone’s emergency-call functions. This can be set up to alert emergency personnel as well as people that you include on your contact list.
5. You want to keep tabs on your loved one’s location to ensure that he or she has not gotten lost. The solution is to use the Find My app on the iPhone of the person you are helping. You can see the loved one’s location on a map. This used to be called Find My Friends.
6. What happens if your loved one or a caregiver's patient requires medical assistance when you are not around? The solution is to input medical information and history into the Medical ID part of the pre-installed Health app on an iPhone. This allows emergency personnel to access this without needing to know the passcode for the device.

This is important information for caregivers and family members, and reminds all of us to be current and knowledgeable with our smartphone technology, which ultimately results in caregiving made easier.