Supporting a Loved One on #GivingTuesday

Are you supporting a loved one who struggles to maintain a healthy work-life balance while caregiving for an ailing family member? Wondering how you can reduce the stress your loved one faces? 

Caregiving can be exhausting if one is not aware of the resources and tools available to them. Approximately 41 million unpaid family caregivers provided an estimated 34 billion hours of care– with a staggering $470 billion– to their parents, spouses, partners, and friends (AARP). Between mundane chores, managing their loved one’s medications, balancing doctor appointments, and finding time to allow quality time with themselves and their family members, it can be difficult for caregivers to not feel overwhelmed.

Today, the landscape of digital health has completely transformed the caregiving community, making it invaluable to family members providing care. At illuminate.health, we can provide guidance and clarity to caregivers. Our technologically advanced software raises red flags in the event of nonadherence to medication or drug-drug interactions. In addition, our pharmacists provide care by addressing questions and monitoring patient records. This Giving Tuesday, you can show your gratitude and appreciation towards your loved one by giving them a service to ease the burden of everyday caregiving.

Remote patient monitoring is a great tool for caregivers seeking a work-life balance in their life. With the recent advancements in digital health, smart tracking is right at our fingertips. Caring for an ailing family member can be much easier when you have the ability to track their daily progress with medications, monitor their care schedules, and receive answers and resolutions to questions when they arise. illuminate.health’s mobile app offers easy access for family caregivers to help ensure their loved one is receiving the best care possible.

The struggle with work-life balance is something I have personally witnessed my father experience. During the last few months of my grandmother’s life, she required daily care. With her dementia, she would often forget which medications to take and the frequency of each medication. While she had a caregiver come to her home every other day, my father still came to her home almost daily. Not living close to my grandmother, this meant a lot of time driving for my father during the week, a common factor that many family caregivers face.

Having a remote monitoring platform would have reduced some stress from my father, as well as it would have allowed him to save a few long drives to see my grandma. In addition, the platform would have had the ability to address and help prevent medical issues at the home before a crisis could happen. A mobile service that provides the patient with a personalized medication schedule as well as daily medication reminders decreases the risk of poor medication adherence. This, in turn, can lessen the burden and stress on the caregiver, allowing them to find more time for themselves.

Sometimes time and distance can prevent you from helping a loved one with caregiving tasks. However, there are simple steps we can take to move toward more support for caregivers. Giving the gift of a service that aims to ease the care load for caregivers can show how much you appreciate the time and effort your loved one spends on caregiving. We see first-hand the daily commitment, time, and support family caregivers provide to a loved one and have done deep research into medication safety, complications of chronic illnesses, and challenges faced by caregivers. If you are interested in learning more about illuminate.health and gifting our service to a loved one, you can learn more here.