mobile apps

Background: Care partners (ie, informal family caregivers) of individuals with health problems face considerable physical and emotional stress, often with a substantial negative impact on the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of both care partners and care recipients. Given that these individuals are often overwhelmed by their caregiving responsibilities, low-burden self-management interventions are needed to support care partners to ensure better patient outcomes.

Background: As family caregivers of patients undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation have multifaceted caregiving responsibilities (such as medical, household, financial) of long duration, they also have multiple physical, social, psychological, and informational needs. Objective: This study explored the prevalence of electronic health record patient portal use by family caregivers for managing both their own and their hematopoietic cell transplantation care recipient’s health, as well as potential factors associated with portal use.

Background: Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the use of information technologies to educate and support people with dementia and their family caregivers. At the same time, chatbot technologies have become increasingly popular for use by the public and have been identified as having benefits for health care delivery. However, little is known about how chatbot technologies may benefit people with dementia and their caregivers.

Background: Heart failure (HF) affects many older individuals in North America, with recurrent hospitalizations despite postdischarge strategies to prevent readmission. Proper HF self-care can potentially lead to better clinical outcomes, yet many older patients find self-care challenging. Mobile health (mHealth) apps can provide support to patients with respect to HF self-care. However, many mHealth apps are not designed to consider potential patient barriers, such as literacy, numeracy, and cognitive impairment, leading to challenges for older patients.

Background: Informal carers have a crucial role in the care of older people, but they are at risk of social isolation and psychological exhaustion. Web-based services like apps and websites are increasingly used to support informal carers in addressing some of their needs and tasks, such as health monitoring of their loved ones, information and communication, and stress management.

Background: Modern technologies, including smartphone apps, have the potential to assist people with cognitive impairment with activities of daily living, allowing them to maintain their independence and reduce carer burden.

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) provides a unique modality for improving access to and awareness of palliative care among patients, families, and caregivers from diverse backgrounds. Some mHealth palliative care apps exist, both commercially available and established by academic researchers.

Background: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have grown in popularity in recent years and have been shown to reduce stress and increase quality of life among older informal carers. A digital application delivering MBIs has been iteratively designed based on user-centered designed principles and aims to support older informal carers to manage stress and sleep. We describe a qualitative study with older informal carers and the resulting digital application. Methods: A qualitative study with 20 older adults took place over a 2-year period.

Background: Informal caregivers of older adults provide critical support for their loved ones but are subject to negative health outcomes because of burden and stress. Interventions to provide information and resources as well as social and emotional support reduce burden. Mobile apps featuring access to information, assistance with scheduling, and other features can automate support functions inexpensively and conveniently and reach a greater proportion of caregivers than otherwise possible.