Apps We Love – Eldercare - CPA Practice Advisor

Our niche practice focus this month is Eldercare, so the time is right to consider how technology is helping us care for our parents, grandparents, and other elderly people in our lives. We culled the CPA Practice Advisor community for recommendations and augmented the resulting list with a few apps that come highly recommended in the internet at large.

Chris DeBlanc, tax supervisor, RSM US recommends putting Mint.com by Intuit to use. “Taking care of our parents in their old age often times includes managing or monitoring their finances. Mint.com is a great app you can use to track mom and dad’s spending. It links directly to their bank account and tracks all their bank activity. It categorizes items for budgeting and notifies you when there is unusual spending activity. This is crucial in identifying and stopping financial fraud and elder abuse.

As someone who had an elderly relative die recently without leaving his wife any information about his passwords, I can relate to this next recommendation. Doug Sleeter, formerly of The Sleeter Group and Sleeter.com, suggests you look into using LastPass Family Edition. “It allows you to ‘lock up’ your elder parents’ passwords and help them create unique passwords for the sites they visit. You can also share passwords among family members, so it’s easier to help parents with accessing their banking or other sites without knowing their passwords.”

Angie Grissom, president of The Rainmaker Companies, has two suggestions.

Care.com – This app can be described as the Uberization of home care. The Care.com matching services allow you to choose, qualify, and vet a caregiver. “I have used it to find nannies, baby-sitters and elder care for years. I just hired a new nanny this week with it,” said Grissom.
Motosafety – “This has a plug-in component in your child or elderly parent’s vehicle and allows you to track where they are, if they are driving in an unsafe way by speeding or erratic or sudden brake use. You receive a daily report card from the app” said Grissom.

Samantha Mansfield, director of professional development and community at CPA.com: “When a family member ends up in a nursing home it is stressful for everyone and one of the worst are the finances. I have seen the help of using Bill.com to be a great communication and tracking tool for siblings to track the expenses, file the receipts, and everyone has insight.”

Randy Johnston, executive vice president and owner of K2 Enterprises and CEO and founder of Network Management Group, Inc., offers some suggestions based on research he has been doing in this area:

mPower from Sage Bionetworks is studying Parkinson disease with the goal of helping researchers. Users who are living with Parkinson track daily changes by performing tasks while measuring tremors in their hands using the iPhone accelerometer. This can have the effect of allowing medics to spot Parkinson’s digitally before it is symptomatic in the patient.
Use the GIVMED app to donate unused prescriptions to the needy. Register your medicine, indicate what you are able to donate, find out about medicine shortages in welfare organizations.
Pear reSET treats misuse of alcohol, cocaine and other stimulants with interactive therapy lessons and information. The app provides a 12-week program requiring weekly check-ins.

Mashable.com recently recommended several caregiving apps including:

CareZone, an app that you can use to track medications, allergies, insurance cards, and ID cards. You can keep track of appointments in the app as well.
If you’re helping someone with Alzheimer’s, you know that the patient isn’t the only one who suffers. Help manage your own stress levels with Alzheimer’s Caregiver Buddy. You’ll receive tips for caring for your loved one as well as support to help you deal with various behaviors.
And if you find the stress of caregiving is overwhelming, check out the Pacifica mindfulness app to help manage your own stress, anxiety, and depression.