My thanks to Caren for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Caren is a free website that helps you plan, organize, and delegate the tasks and appointments that go along with caring for a loved one.
Not to get too personal, but Caren is a website I wish my family had known about a few years ago. In 2008 my mom brought my grandmother into her home to live with her. My grandmother had Dementia, and my mom chose to become her primary caregiver. My aunts and uncles helped out as often as they could, and my parents had a part-time nursing assistant who would come to the house a few days a week. /but even with all that help, taking care of my grandmother was far more than a full-time job.
A lot of the stress was related to the planning and the logistics surrounding my grandmother’s needs. And that is precisely what Caren has been built to help handle. Caren is basically a project management app designed solely for helping with the many logistical details that go with taking care of a loved one. It has a robust website, a native iPhone app, and is completely free to use.
Once you’ve signed up with Caren, you can add the person (or persons) you are taking care of. From there you can easily add events to their calendar (such as doctor appointments, their weekly Bridge Club gathering, a visit to the park, or whatever), post important notes about that person on their main page, and post messages that can be seen by the other caregivers.
You can assign tasks, events, or other things to anyone in the network of caregivers. Those people can be professionals you’ve hired, friends, or family members. Each person has their own profile page which includes their contact info, their own schedule, and more.
All the information can be accessed via the website’s dashboard — which shows a comprehensive overview of all activity taking place — or the Caren iPhone app.
I am personally very impressed with Caren. It’s a web app built for normal people, and they have done a great job keeping it simple and easy to use. If you or someone you know has a family member to take care of then I would highly recommend signing up for a free account on Caren. Moreover, if you are someone who helps manage several caregivers you may want to look into this website as a way to organize all the different people, schedules, needs, and caregivers you work with.