In 2023, as many as 82.2% of the U.S. population owns a smartphone, and the bulk of U.S. adults’ smartphone usage is spent on mobile apps – including some that can help with your caregiving duties. The demands of caring for a loved one can be exhausting and overwhelming, so family caregivers need all the help they can get. Fortunately, help is available at your fingertips with caregiving apps.

Caregiver apps can help caregivers stay organized, make their daily tasks more manageable, and relieve some of the burdens of family caregiving. The best caregiver apps can help caregivers with various tasks such as medication reminders, activity logging, managing appointments, coordinating a team of caregivers, and more. However, there are dozens of caregiver apps for iPhone and Android devices, so finding the best ones can take time and effort.

To help you find the best caregiver mobile apps, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most impressive and helpful apps for managing a loved one’s care. Disease-specific apps (for those with a loved one who has Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, or diabetes, for example) are also available. You may find that a single app doesn’t offer everything you need, so feel free to try a few. Most are free or reasonably priced, and they can help make your caregiving life much easier.

Overview of The Best Apps for Caregivers

CaringBridge

Best App for Easy Communication with Family and Friends

CaringBridge is just that — a bridge that allows you and your loved ones to stay in touch. It’s a perfect app for a family that rallies around a loved one in need of care, and for those who are facing surgeries, rehabilitation, and procedures that go along with conditions such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. The app offers a space for multiple caregivers and family members to share pertinent information, such as updates, encouragement, and arranging care. There’s a guest book offering a place for journal entries, medical updates, photos, stories, and tributes.

This is a wonderful addition to caregiver apps and unique in that it creates a place for more than managing a loved one’s care — you can uplift, stay in the loop and help each other through a difficult time.

What’s Great About CaringBridge:

CaringBridge specializes in keeping loved ones connected. By focusing on this important goal, the app’s designers have created a product that not only passes along information but is also a holding place for good thoughts, encouragement, and photos as well as medical and caregiving updates. These features make CaringBridge a uniquely thoughtful and comprehensive tool.

The sensitive nature of this information would make anyone nervous about sharing it digitally. Fortunately, CaringBridge has taken measures to secure users’ information, leaving users stress-free when communicating about their loved ones’ needs. These features make CaringBridge a uniquely thoughtful and comprehensive tool.

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Lotsa Helping Hands

Best App for Care Coordination

Lotsa Helping Hands is a caregiving app that helps you create a community of care around your loved one. You can invite family, friends, volunteers, and care aides to join and then manage everything from sitters and errands to appointments and family gatherings using an interactive calendar.

There’s also a section of the app called “Helping Hands,” which serves as a message board and a well-wishes wall where caregivers, family, and friends can leave messages of encouragement for the person receiving care or for someone else in the care circle. This app lets you choose a coordinator and a community member page where you can update contact information, birthdates, and list the best times to call. These features make Lotsa Helping Hands a good resource for creating a vibrant care community.

What’s Great About Lotsa Helping Hands:

Lotsa Helping Hands has much to offer caregivers and their loved ones. The webpage offers real support, stories from other caregivers, a newsletter, and additional features that complement the app. Using the Care Calendar, family members and friends can schedule and sign up for tasks, from meal delivery to transport services. Caregivers can also use the Lotsa Helping Hands app to post announcements, allowing loved ones to receive well wishes and support from family and friends.

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Caring Village

Best App for Information Storage

The Caring Village app is designed specifically for family caregivers to help them easily coordinate and keep track of their loved one’s care. It’s also a safe app for storing important documents and other sensitive information about the care recipient.

Caring Village CEO and Co-founder Mike Behrman says he was inspired to launch the app after he and his wife became caregivers for his mother-in-law, who has dementia. “We realized that the most important thing we needed to do was communicate effectively with other family members, her care professionals and neighbors,” he said in a news release.

The app is meant to enable family caregivers to do just that via a secure messaging system where users can create “villages” among friends and relatives to help coordinate the specifics of a loved one’s care. Caring Village users can create customizable care plans for their loved ones plus personalized to-do lists. The app’s features also include a centralized calendar, document storage, a place to list medications, and a wellness journal that allows you to share entries with the rest of your “village.”

What’s Great About Caring Village:

Reviewers say the app is easy to use and gives them peace of mind about staying on top of their loved one’s care plan. Caring Village helps caregivers and family members stay informed by allowing users to electronically store important documents that are only accessible to the group’s inner circle. As AARP’s Anne Marie Kilgallon was quoted as saying in a Tech Crunch article earlier this year, “[Caring Village is] all about the connection between family, caregivers and care recipients.”

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First Aid: American Red Cross

Best App for Emergencies

The unfortunate reality of caring for someone is that an accident can happen at any time. No matter how cautious you are, normal challenges that come with aging like reduced mobility and balance can lead to accidents and injuries. When these things do occur, you need to address the issue quickly and you don’t want to rely on intuition alone. This is what makes the First Aid: American Red Cross app an essential tool in caring for your loved one.

This app offers its users professional advice, helpful videos and animations for first-aid learning, step-by-step instructions during emergencies, and an integrated 9-1-1 call button. Plus, it comes preloaded with a wealth of information about first aid and CPR, making it a must-have app for caregivers.

What’s Great About First Aid: American Red Cross:

First Aid: American Red Cross is content-rich, and all that critical information is available offline. If you are in the woods without a signal or have your phone on airplane mode during your flight, the information and tools you need will still be accessible. This can be life-saving in an emergency where there’s no one nearby to help. 

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eCare21

Best App for Health Monitoring

eCare21 provides round-the-clock patient monitoring through wireless and wearable devices such as a smartwatch or FitBit. You can track the wearer’s glucose, heart rate, activity, medication, weight, calorie intake, and sleep. Caregivers, patients, family members, and doctors can access this helpful information anytime via the app.

eCare is ideal for caregivers as they manage their loved ones’ schedules and meet their health needs. However, you may need several apps or websites to tackle more complex caregiving challenges such as pain management, medication interaction, financial matters, and end-of-life issues. While the app is free, you can upgrade your subscription to access benefits like unlimited care plans and the ability to share care plans with a caregiver.

What’s Great About eCare21:

eCare21’s latest technology allows you to monitor your loved one’s care needs without being intrusive. It’s ideal for a working or long-distance caregiver and by providing vital health data, which means better and quicker response. Forbes offered a favorable review of eCare21 stating, “The patients’ doctors, loved ones and caregivers can keep an eye on them and provide proactive care, even from hundreds of miles away.”

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Medisafe

Best App for Medication Management

Any caregiver knows the frustrations and concerns involved in medication management. For administering medications, caregivers must remember things like dosage timing and record-keeping, whether or not to take it with food, potential side effects, and tracking benefits or drawbacks. Through offering reminders and practical information, Medisafe Meds & Pill Reminder helps alleviate some of these concerns by connecting caregivers, seniors, and the medical community to provide cohesive care.

While some users noted frustrations with loading several medications at various time intervals, it should also be noted that MediSafe receives high marks for customer support, and the app’s support team addresses each online review concern.

What’s Great About Medisafe:

Medisafe is designed for users of any age and caregivers responsible for medication monitoring. Medisafe is unique in that it’s a medication reminder and educates people about their condition and the medicines they’re taking at the same time. The app can help caregivers with reminders, progression tracking, and even finding coupons and other incentives. It also benefits physicians who want to connect with their patients through the Medisafe app. Medisafe has been featured on CNBC and in Reader’s Digest.

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Ianacare

Best App for Self-Care and Caregiver Support

Amidst the demands of caring for loved ones, caregivers are at a greater risk of stress and burnout, as well as negative impacts to their physical and mental health. The Ianacare (iana means “I am not alone”) app was designed to equip and empower caregivers with the resources and support they need. The app provides the ability to organize caregiver teams and request or receive help from family and friends. For instance, you can ask for assistance with transporting your loved one to an appointment, and someone from your social circle can accept your request via the Ianacare app.

The main draw of the Ianacare smartphone app is its focus on helping people with their caregiver journey. Ianacare promotes the idea of taking care of your physical and mental well-being by providing high-quality expert content and connecting you with various caregiving support groups and communities. This helps you become a better care provider in the long run.

What’s Great About Ianacare:

Ianacare is one of the few platforms that focuses on helping caregivers cope while caring for a loved one. For example, caregivers can use the app to find curated programs and services available in their local area. Plus, the app gives you ways to contact organizations directly. In addition, Ianacare offers Caregiver Navigators, where you can receive 1-1 support from trained caregiver coaches.

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