Caregiving is a very delicate job, especially when you are a personal acquaintance of the person needing care and not a hired caregiver. The job gets even more difficult due to the emotional ties present. There are several diseases, disorders, and physical ailments that make people susceptible to the care and attention of others. One of these disorders is dementia.
What is dementia?
A pervasive disorder of today, dementia is not mainly a disease. It is marked by several conditions together, along with the impairing of at least two brain functions. Though some cases are curable, or more preferably reversible, dementia comes with other problems like memory loss, decreased social skills, and judgment, which can only be managed solely with continuous medication.
Impact on the caregivers
With the constant need for care, dementia requires an aide to be always at the side of a patient, who is very susceptible to reduced bodily reflexes and mood fluctuations. Consequently, caregiving for dementia is a challenging job and impacts the lives of all those who have a patient in their family. Recent statistics showed that 16.3 million family members of dementia patients in the US provided 18.5 billion hours of care, which is predominantly unpaid. Hence, there is a very urging need to provide support for caregivers who otherwise may feel isolated in their constant caregiving.
The building of a dementia app
Due to these very same reasons, where caregiving for dementia can be a difficult task, a 19-year-old US citizen, Logan Wells, came up with the idea of an app for dementia.
Around six years ago, Wells’s family saw their beloved Nannie fall victim to dementia. Wells said that it was as terrible for the rest of the family as it was for his grandmother. With time moving, Nannie succumbed more and more to her condition, and they hired personal caretakers. But with too many hands taking care of the grandmother, there were several times when they would assume a task was done, and Nannie would suffer the whole day. It was challenging to manage all group chats and inform about everything that was going on throughout the day.
As support for caregivers and their continuous hassles, Logan thought of building an app for dementia. With the help of his father and another father-son pair, they built the app on which they could list the tasks of the whole day. Hence, all caretakers could browse through the app and be informed of the latest details.
App success
Available on both android and apple play store, CareZare, the app for dementia is currently being used by over 600 families. From organizing events like a birthday party to picnics, to warn each other if the patient is feeling a bit down the weather, caregiving for dementia is made easy. You can set timers for when medicines are to be given, or post notifications if a task is done, or send heads up messages, etc.
Logan said that with more people joining the app, they are customizing it for more personalized needs. He also says that support for caregivers is necessary so that they do not get dragged down with a difficult task. Caregivers should always find support, whether from family or friends, so that they can take care of themselves, too.
