Top Caregiver Apps to Simplify Caregiving Tasks

Did you know that almost half of the 53 million unpaid family caregivers in the U.S. are adult children looking after their parents or in-laws?

With an aging population and a distinct lack of paid caregivers, it's a trend that will no doubt persist.

Caring for seniors is complex and demanding for caregivers.

Dealing with aging parents often requires juggling many tasks and responsibilities. The key ones include managing medication reminders, coordinating care, communicating with family, and caring for seniors' daily needs. Besides, caregivers have their own lives and chores to undertake.

Thanks to mobile health technology and innovations, app creators have come to their aid. Through caregiver apps, caregivers can find more effective and efficient ways to stay in communication, organized, and informed.

But with so many apps available on the market, deciding on the best caregiver apps can be challenging. So, we've compiled the top caregiver apps to simplify caregiver tasks.

What is a Caregiver App?

A caregiver app is software that helps caregivers manage their tasks and responsibilities. These apps aim to reduce the stress and burden of caregiving. How?

By providing tools to organize tasks, coordinate care, and communicate with healthcare professionals.

Caregiver apps offer key caregiving features such as medication reminders, communication tools, appointment trackers, and access to resources and support networks.

The Top 10 Elderly Care Apps

Here is our list of the top elderly care apps to simplify caregiving tasks. They cut across different care tasks and responsibilities.

1. JubileeTV App

JubileeTV is an all in one remote caregiving system that turns your loved one's TV set into an interactive caregiving platform, making caring for seniors easier, even from a distance. The JubileeTV App is available for iOS, Android and Web.

Top JubileeTV App features include:

• Telescope app-based TV control helps with troubleshooting TV issues, power on and off, volume control, changing channels, finding shows, switching sources, and more.
• Activity Feed allows you to tune into your loved one's TV routines and get alerted to changes in their typical patterns - it's a non-intrusive elderly monitoring system!
• Easy video calling to seniors right on their TV set.
• Curate a personalized channel lineup.
• Schedule reminders for medications, medical appointments, household chores, or other activities.
• Media sharing of photos and short videos.

The JubileeTV App can turn the senior's TV on remotely for video calls and important messages to give the senior your presence. You can also know if the television is on from The App and get a real-time snapshot of what's playing.

Also, the JubileeTV App provides a direct, remote connection to the senior's TV, and you can add as many friends and family members as you like, select channels, and provide navigation.

Caregivers can start a video call from the app, connect face-to-face with their senior loved one from any device, and share photos and videos with their elderly loved ones.

2. Medisafe Medication Management

Medication management is a critical aspect of caregiving. Whether for a short-term medical need or a prolonged and complex condition, medication management needs alertness and prompt action.

The Medisafe app is a medication management app with one simple but important goal: to send the care receiver senior personalized medication reminders, tracking adherence, and refill alerts for each medication. The aim is to simplify the medication process while giving the caregiver and loved ones peace of mind.

Top Medisafe features include:

• Medication reminders
• Alerts to caregivers are sent when medications are missed
• Alerts for missed medication or when medications are running low
• Medication organizer that tracks refills and expiration dates
• Medication interaction warning
• Syncs with GoodRx for prescription coupons

3. Pill Reminder - All In One

Pill Reminder is an all-in-one simplified medication management and reminder app.

It reminds seniors to take medications at the right time and helps caregivers stay on top of their care receivers' medication regimens. It allows caregivers to create recurring reminders (every X hours, specific times, daily, weekly, monthly, every X days, etc.). Caregivers can also use the app to track the remaining quantity of each medication through a refill alert when medication is running low.

Top Pill Reminder All-In-One features include:

• Schedule and reschedule medications
• Mark medications as taken or missed
• Refill reminders
• Medication calendar and reminders for medical appointments
• Email reports to caregivers and health practitioners
• Multiple user support
• Critical alerts support

4. Ianacare

ianacare is a comprehensive caregiver support platform that connects caregivers with a network and community of fellow caregivers, family, healthcare professionals, and resources. Built by family caregivers, ianacare is dedicated to giving caregivers the tools, community, and help to empower them in caregiving. From sharing experiences to accessing educational content and seeking emotional support, ianacare app empowers seniors' caregivers in their caregiving.

The iancare app allows users to post needs, such as doing laundry or a ride to an appointment, which are visible to the person's network for elder caregiving.

ianacare app enables seniors' caregivers to:

• Coordinate help with family and friends
• Keep their caregiving curated community updated in a private feed
• Keep the care team organized with a collaborative calendar so the network can know how/when to give support without needing to ask.

5. CaringBridge

Communication is a critical factor when dividing up caregiving tasks and sharing care updates with concerned loved ones.

CaringBridge is a communication platform and family caregiver app for collaborative care. It allows caregivers to create personalized websites to share updates and coordinate care with friends and family. Users create a personal site for their loved ones under care, which they can update regularly through the app, making it a centralized platform for sharing health updates. The app also connects multiple caregivers, providing access to appointment dates, changes in health, and other essential information.

Key CaringBridge features include:

• Sharing health updates (appointment dates, health changes, essential information)
• Sharing diagnoses, medications, treatments, and milestones with family and friends.
• Journal entries
• Photo sharing
• Guestbook messages
• GoFundMe for funds raising

6. Lotsa Helping Hands

If everyone else can use volunteers, support, or delegation of tasks, why can't seniors caregivers? That's what the Lotsa Helping Hands app offers.

Lotsa Helping Hands is a caregiving coordination tool that facilitates task delegation and volunteer scheduling among family members, friends, and neighbors. Need help checking items off your home safety checklist for seniors? 

The Lotsa app facilitates community support and coordination of elderly caregiving to streamline the process of providing care and support. How?

The Lotsa Helping Hands app allows caregivers and care receivers to:

• Communicate appointment information
• Share elderly health updates
• Create care calenders
• Schedule meals, rides and visits
• Organize care volunteers and solicit help by posting requests.
• Invite anyone into the care group to support care
• Send and receive supportive messages about the senior person under care
• Post photos and update the care circle on the loved one's health

7. CircleOf

Caregivers use care networks and circles as their support systems for collaboration in care.

CircleOf is a care coordination app that enables caregivers to create care circles. In these circles, they can securely share information, documents, and tasks with trusted members to promote collaboration and transparency in caregiving.

The features include:

• Shared calendars
• Medication lists
• Care plans
• Share care news and updates to keep everyone in the loop
• Coordinate meals, rides, and shopping
• Auto-sync shared calendars
• Store and share documents
• Find answers and helpful resources
• Connect to private chat and video calls

8. Carely

Caregivers also need effective communication and social networks with other caregivers, family, and friends. This is where the Carely app comes in.

Carely is a caregiver communication and coordination platform and personal social network made up of people caregivers who share caregiving responsibilities. It centralizes care-related information and updates in one convenient app, keeping families connected and organized about the care of a loved one.

Key features include:

• Coordinate care
• Plan visits
• Share memories

The Carely app allows caregivers to post comments, photos or questions, use the calendar to easily track appointments and schedule caregiving, and explore local caregiving resources. It also supports task assignment, activity, and appointment tracking to enhance communication and collaboration among caregivers and care recipients.

9. Caring Village

Caring Village is similar to Carely: it lets you create a custom " village" or team of caregivers and a support network-family, friends, neighbors, care professionals - and assign roles with secure in-app messaging, shareable to-do lists and other features.

Caring Village combines care coordination, communication, and resources in one intuitive platform to support care and connection between caregivers and care recipients.

Key features include:

• Care circles
• Task lists
• Community forums
• Track medications and prescriptions
• Store important documents
• Communicate with your support network from a single dashboard
• Synchronize calendars
• Keep a wellness journal

The app empowers caregivers to provide high-quality care while accessing support and guidance from a community.

10. Senior Safety App

Seniors are vulnerable and need the utmost care, monitoring, and prompt action in any unsafe situation or emergency. This is where the Senior Safety App comes in.

Senior Safety App is a personal safety and emergency response app designed to protect seniors at home and on the go. This app helps family members, and caregivers keep track of their elderly loved ones while being away from them.

Key features include:

• Fall detection
• GPS tracking
• Emergency call/alerts
• Inactivity tracker to track extended inactive periods.
• One-click 911 call
• 24/7 location tracker
• Geofence alert
• Battery low alert and phone stolen alert

Senior Safety App provides peace of mind to caregivers while ensuring their loved one's safety and well-being and helps Seniors get attention quickly to keep them safe and healthy.

The Advantages of Using Caregiver Apps

There are many advantages to using elderly care apps and general caregiver apps. Here are the key advantages:

Efficient Communication

Caregiver apps facilitate communication and coordination among caregivers, healthcare professionals, and family members, ensuring everyone stays informed and connected about the care recipient's condition, health, medication, activity levels, and more.

Coordinating Care

Care apps help in coordinating care to allow the caregiver to not only schedule additional caregivers or appointments, but also to share updates with the care team. They support scheduling and communicating with everyone involved in the care process to improve care and care support.

Organization

By centralizing care-related information, responsibilities, and tasks, caregiver apps help caregivers stay organized and focused on providing high-quality care.

Symptom tracking

Most seniors have more than one health condition to monitor. Caregiver apps help track symptoms to keep seniors' health on track and make communicating with the healthcare team much smoother.

Medication management

Managing medications is surprisingly complicated, especially for seniors who must take multiple medications regularly. Elderly care apps send reminders for medication administration and refills, with extra benefits, such as symptom tracking, communication with caregivers, and a database search of pharmacies with the medication.

Efficiency

Caregiver apps streamline caregiving tasks and help caregivers manage responsibilities more efficiently. They modernize care organization and management and streamline caregiver communications through access to the latest patient information and schedules, no matter where they are. In turn, this can reduce confusion and improve care quality.

Digital records

Moreover, caregiving apps give you an infallible digital record that serves everything from electronic visit verification to accurate payroll and billing. Compared to email or pen-and-paper records, they can save you hours of admin time. By digitizing records, you'll find it easier to share relevant information while continuing to keep protected information private and secure.

How to Select the Best Elderly Care App for You

When choosing a caregiver app, consider the following factors:

Essential Features to Look For

Look for caregiver apps with essential features such as ease of use, medication reminders, communication tools, organization, care coordination, resource access, first aid support, emergency support, and medical records.

User Friendliness and Accessibility

Choose an app that is user-friendly and accessible to both caregivers and care recipients, with intuitive interfaces and customizable features.

Privacy and Data Security Measures

Elderly care involves sharing key data such as messages, pictures, voice notes, calls, and more, often in volumes. Ensure the app prioritizes privacy and data security with robust encryption and compliance with healthcare privacy regulations.

Costs vs Benefits

Evaluate the caregiver's app costs and benefits, considering subscription fees, premium features, and value-added services.

Conclusion

Caregiver apps are vital in simplifying caregiving tasks and enhancing the quality of care provided to seniors and individuals with special needs. By leveraging technology to streamline elderly care communication, organization, coordination and support, caregiver apps empower caregivers to navigate their caregiving journey confidently and easily. Whether managing medications, coordinating care, or accessing resources and support networks, caregiver apps offer invaluable assistance to caregivers.