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Tools for Family Caregivers Improve Communication and Reduce Costs

Pharmaceutical Companies Benefit from Next Generation Eldercare Resources

Chronic health conditions among seniors have emerged as a major cause of stress and functional dependency among Americans. The bulk of caregiving traditionally falls upon one family member, usually the spouse or adult child. Moving from crisis to crisis, the caregiver can fall prey to physical and emotional illness.

Pharmaceutical Companies are now in a unique position to help family caregivers self-identify and access a comprehensive set of tools to assist their customers through all stages of the caregiving process via a branded portal developed by Care Giver Helper.

The benefits are improved outcomes for caregivers and care recipients as well as reduced costs for society particularly if the care recipient can delay the move to a long term care facility.

"Over 44 million caregivers in America are in a silent crisis; overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for a chronically ill, disabled or elderly family member" says Steven Dworkin, CEO of Care Giver Helper, a Massachusetts based business that provides tools to assist family caregivers.

"These families face a multitude of problems from providing the most basic of daily living activities such as feeding, bathing, and transportation, to coordinating medications, medical appointments, dealing with financial responsi-bilities and more" he concluded.

50% of Americans over the age of 70 have one or more chronic illnesses and one or more specialists, in addition to, their primary physician.

With multiple conditions, keeping track of medications, proper dosages and potential drug interactions can be a significant challenge to both the patient and the caregiver.

The risk to the care recipient is also magnified as stressed caregivers seek to balance work, home and caregiving tasks.

It's easy to make mistakes especially with medications. When you consider that as many as 73% of seniors, particularly those with more than 3 chronic health conditions may take an average of 5 - 8 medications daily. It's a lot to keep track of!

Traditionally caregivers are given few or no resources to address these complex tasks. In fact, the stress of caregiving and the difficulty of locating support and local resources often forces families to make the decision to prematurely institutionalize a loved one.

The Care Giver Helper portal helps families coordinate and share those tasks. This helps reduce family stress and avoid burn-out, improve health of the caregiver and even delay moving a loved one to a nursing facility.

Care Giver Helper facilitates the creation of private and secure family communities that help caregivers to put all of their support information in one place: contact numbers of doctors and caregivers, medications and dosages, a common calendar with appointment reminders, and events such as birthdays or anniversaries.

There is also a place to store medical, legal, insurance and other pertinent documents as well as information on care recipient preferences such as favorite foods, music and hobbies.

More importantly, CareGiver Helper streamlines the organization and communication between family caregivers facilitating daily activities, emergencies and long term planning. The benefits are reduced stress and isolation, which are so often associated with caregiving responsibilities.

Resource communities provide information on specific health related topics such as diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease and cancer and as well as providing answers to difficult questions like "when do I take the car keys away from mom?"

Finding resources, seeking expert help, communicating and sharing encouragement with peers are all benefits of these focused communities. One of the unique features of Care Giver Helper is the ability to access all of these resources in one location.

Pharmaceutical companies can also be an important resource for caregivers and their family communities who are seeking critical information about medications, contraindications and side effects.

To learn more about the development of your own branded pharmaceutical portal contact: www.CareGiverHelper.com

co-authored by: Robert M. Zakon

CareGiverHelper, Inc.

CareGiverHelper is an internet healthcare marketing and communications company that assists organizations build brand awareness, client loyalty and new client acquisition, through an online community for family caregivers. This web based service improves task organization and communication between family caregivers in order to assist in facilitating daily activities, emergency response and longer term planning processes. It also includes discussion and support groups that are facilitated by resource communities that each focus on a specific health related topic. The service is free of charge for non-paid caregivers and their families.