Background
Our goal in creating the SimpliTend senior and caregiver apps was to deliver a comprehensive solution tailored exclusively for family caregivers. We understand that our family caregivers have a variety of responsibilities and may not be able to spend 100% of their time with their loved ones. Furthermore, most seniors prefer to remain independent, live at home, and go about their daily lives on their own, yet family caregivers are constantly concerned about their location and safety. As a result, the primary purpose of our application was to ensure seniors' safety by allowing them to go about their daily routines at home while keeping family caregivers informed of their whereabouts.
Operation:
SimpliTend is a single-release package application that contains two smartphone apps: one for seniors and one for caregivers. To ensure senior safety, the senior must install the SimpliTend app on his/her device first, create an account, and provide the caregiver's contact information. SimpliTend will then send the caregiver a secure email containing a time-limited, one-time password. After receiving the SimpliTend invitation email, the caregiver can download and install the app and create an account. The caregiver will then be prompted to enter the one-time password and subscribe. Once completed, the caregiver's and senior's phones will be synchronized, allowing the caregiver to view his or her loved one's profile and get notifications. The SimpliTend applications are cross-platform (Android and iOS) compatible, which means that the caregiver and senior devices may be running different operating systems. They only need to download the SimpliTend senior and caregiver app from the proper store.
Please keep in mind that the apps require both the senior and the caregiver to be registered.
Senior App:
The senior application keeps them safe by providing a simple and user-friendly home screen with just 5 large buttons: Call, Chat, Apps, Direction, and SOS.
Call: This button allows the user to phone or text the contacts in SimpliTend's app contact list.
SimpliTend contact list: 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 contacts (default set to 10 but can be reset to 50) to utilize on a daily basis. The SimpliTend app displays the names and relationships of contacts, which may aid seniors with memory impairment. On Android smartphones, seniors can only receive calls from the SimpliTend contacts list. All other calls from the original phone contact list, as well as unknown calls, are blocked, resulting in less spam, robocalls, and unsolicited phone calls.
This feature operates slightly differently on the iPhone due to differences between the iOS and Android operating systems. The iPhone's Simplitend senior app still allows seniors to create a short list of family and friend contacts. However, spam and unwanted calls are not blocked.
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 at the press of a button.
SOS: The SOS button is set to dial 911; there is no need for seniors to enter the digits. The SOS button can be programmed to call a friend or family caregiver's phone number. In addition, if the senior initiates an SOS call, the family caregiver will be notified.
Direction: This button 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 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 their preloaded apps. The functionality aims to reduce app clutter or restrict the preloaded apps 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.
The SimpliTend Senior app allows users to schedule their medications or activities by selecting the profile menu.
Medication schedule: The SimpliTend senior app allows your elderly loved one to create medication reminders. Every time a medication reminder appears, the caregiver gets notified, allowing the family caregiver to remind their loved one.
Activity schedule: Seniors can enter their doctor's appointment or a meeting with a friend and receive reminders. Again, their caregiver will be reminded via an alert.
Caregiver App:
Once the caregiver registers his or her device, the senior and caregiver apps are linked, allowing the caregiver to view and edit the senior's profile as well as get notifications from the senior's smartphone. The family caregiver can edit or create a medication or activity schedule, edit the senior's contact list, or create a geofence for the senior.
Notifications: Caregivers will receive the following notifications from the senior device:
Medication reminder
Medication refill reminder
Activity reminder
Senior initiated a SOS call
Senior requested direction to home
Geofence alert
Low battery
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.
Senior location: The senior’s device location is displayed on the family caregiver dashboard, allowing the caregiver to see if the senior is at home or walking in the neighborhood. By clinking the map, the caregivers can see the detailed location of the senior.
Daily Articles: Simplitend has assembled a selection of public articles that focus on topics pertinent to seniors and caregivers. The caregiver can choose to read the daily article or read one from the publications in SimpliTend's database. This feature goal is to provide information about elder health and safety issues as well as self-care strategies for caregivers.
