Imagine the peace of mind you’ll feel when you know your loved ones are secure and able to manage their daily routines. By promoting independence, you will decrease your stress level and can focus on your personal and job obligations. Although it may be simple to imagine, how can you help your loved ones develop a sense of independence in practice?
Maintaining independence for seniors is one of the biggest concerns aging adults face. Older people are accustomed to deciding their own actions, and removing this sense of self-determination can lead to feelings of denial and depression. By acknowledging and respecting a senior’s need for independence, caregivers can offer better quality care and foster healthy, productive relationships. Being a caregiver to a senior is a delicate task. Especially when you’re a close family member, it is difficult to determine if you are providing enough support or pushing what you think is best.
Here are some suggestions for building an environment that encourages independence:
Decision-making: Allowing seniors to make decisions for themselves is one approach to fostering independence. Encourage elders to make healthy choices by providing them with pertinent information and soliciting their feedback on key decisions that affect them.
Set up routines: Having a schedule makes it simpler to remember things, including when to take your prescription or show up for an appointment. But you should also make sure that there aren't too many boring activities on your loved one's schedule. Assist your loved one in making a routine that includes time for activities they enjoy, like taking a stroll in the park.
Hobbies: It’s also important to help your loved one find a reason to be independent. Filling your loved one’s days with enjoyable hobbies and activities provides motivation to maintain his or her abilities. It is crucial that your approach revolves around what they enjoy doing; don't force your ideas of what makes them happy on them. If they enjoy dancing, set aside some time for them to dance with their friends. If your loved one has lost interest in things he or she used to enjoy, help him or her find new hobbies, such as gardening or writing.
Make it safe: While encouraging independence, it is critical to ensure that the senior's environment is safe. For example, some elders may not feel safe doing particular chores, such as cooking or bathing. As a result, installing an automatic shutoff device on the stove or handrails in the bathroom may boost your loved one's confidence in doing things on their own.
Step in and help when needed: While you want to give your loved ones the freedom to accomplish things on their own, you must also ensure their safety. As a result, you must keep an eye on your loved ones in the background and be ready to intervene if you suspect a safety hazard.
The SimpliTend senior and caregiver smartphone application gives you the tools you need to provide your elderly loved ones a sense of independence. SimpliTend believes that safety and independence must coexist, which is why we developed a dual app that operates concurrently on both senior and caregiver smartphones. Our senior application delivers the fundamental tools required to keep the seniors independent.
Short contact list: Seniors are among the most vulnerable populations when it comes to unwanted robocalls and scam calls. They may be more likely to fall for scams and can be easily confused by a high volume of unwanted calls. Furthermore, most seniors have accumulated a large number of contacts on their phone over the years. This may make it more difficult for elders to navigate this lengthy list and readily connect with their loved ones. SimpliTend enables seniors to construct a small list of family and friend connections (up to 10) to utilize on a daily basis. The SimpliTend app displays the names and relationships of contacts, which may aid seniors with memory impairment. Seniors can only receive calls from the ten contacts on the SimpliTend app. All other calls from the original phone contact list, as well as unknown calls*, are blocked, resulting in less spam, robocalls, and unwanted phone calls.
Chat: The SimpliTend app provides unique chat functionality on the senior's home dashboard that is directly connected to the caregiver, allowing the senior to communicate with the caregiver with the press of a button.
Direction to home: The SimpliTend senior application has a button on the home screen that is preprogrammed to provide turn-by-turn walking directions to the senior's home. This is essential because some seniors may become disoriented and lose their sense of direction when taking a walk in their own neighborhood. If the elder requests directions to their home, the caregiver will be alerted.
APP: This button on the SimpliTend senior dashboard displays a short list of applications for seniors. The functionality aims to reduce app clutter or restrict applications that seniors do not use frequently. The senior or caregiver can select the whitelisted or restricted applications during setup or later from the senior's profile.
SOS: SimpliTend senior dashboard also includes a preprogrammed SOS call button. The SOS button is set to dial 911, but it can be changed to dial a friend or family caregiver's phone number. In addition, if the senior triggers the SOS call, the family caregiver will be notified.
Medication schedule: Your elderly loved one can set up medicine reminders with the help of the SimpliTend senior app. Every time a prescription reminder is sent, the caregiver will also be notified, giving you the opportunity to call your loved one and remind them.
Activity schedule: Seniors can enter their doctor's appointment or a meeting with a friend and receive reminders, so they don't miss their appointments. Again, their caregiver will be reminded via an alert.
SimpliTend believes that seniors should remain at home until they have a valid health or safety cause to relocate to a nursing home. SimpliTend provides caregivers peace of mind by keeping them up to date on their loved ones' whereabouts and activities while they tend to their own children, jobs, or personal business.
Senior and caregiver apps are linked: The SimpliTend application securely links the senior device to the caregiver, allowing the caregiver to view and update the senior profile, such as medication or activity schedules.
Geofence: Our research shows that seniors like taking walks about the neighborhood on occasion, but there is always the risk that they will venture outside of their usual surroundings and become disoriented. SimpliTend enables caregivers to create a geofence around the senior's home location and receive notifications if the elder crosses the geofence zone.
Notifications: As previously mentioned, the family caregiver receives alerts when the senior dials an emergency SOS number, receives directions to their house, or when it is time for their prescription or scheduled activities.
* Performance may vary depending on the smartphone operating system.