Caregivers of the world: help is closer and more affordable than you might think. Despite daily technological innovations, it’s still easy to picture technology as a pricy luxury that only top hospitals or millionaires can afford to employ. Thankfully, that isn’t the case. There are countless technological aids readily available to help you help your charge.

Ready for a crash course? Here are 7 simple ways technology can help you with caregiving:

1. Provide Connections

While social media certainly has its pitfalls, no one can deny that it’s a useful way to keep in touch with loved ones. You name a photo-sharing, video-sharing or communication enabling media, and it has likely helped someone, somewhere, gain positive social interaction with distant loved ones.

Understandably, not everyone may want or need their own social media accounts, social media makes it easier for caretakers to share videos and photo albums to help their charge feel and stay connected. When it comes to video chatting, Skype remains a perennial favorite. It’s simple to use and isn’t android or iPhone specific.

2. Promote Mental Exercise

There really is an app for everything, including apps specifically designed to help improve memory and other cognitive skills. Some apps are broad in their mental fitness goals, while others are tailored to specific needs, like apps that help autistic children and adults learn to read facial cues. You can also simply install apps for favorites like Sudoku, crossword puzzles or Scrabble equivalents for more familiar mental fun.

3. Promote Physical Exercise

Many factors can limit physical exercise or provide motivational setbacks. Anything from transportation setbacks to anxiety over new situations can make going to the gym or joining a rec team a seemingly impossible task.

Assisted living facilities and in-home caregivers alike can use a variety of emerging technology to encourage and facilitate exercise. For example, nursing homes have experimented — with positive results — by combining virtual reality with stationary equipment as a way to make stationary exercise more exciting and engaging.

On a far more accessible level, a simple and mainstream device like a Wii can provide safe, fun exercise through Wii Fit programs.

4. Manage Medical Information

Whether you’re a concerned child, parent or a professional facility, it’s important to store and track a patient’s information in one central location. Professional facilities, in keeping with the times, utilize electronic medical records and scheduling systems to keep all employees up-to-date on patient care.

For example, caregivers who work at long-term care facilities might have access to information dashboards that streamline everything from appointments to billing to prescription tracking.

Personal caregivers, like friends and family members, can use a variety of apps and tools designed to help track information related to a dependent’s medical care. These tools can range from providing reminders to take or refill medicine to acting as a one-stop hub for all important medical information.

5. Navigate Impairments

Whether it’s hearing, visual, speech or other impairments, there’s a good chance some innovative techie is working hard to come up with an app or tool to help make life a little easier. There are already plenty of apps designed to help people with physical or mental disabilities better navigate the world. Some of these innovations include speech-to-text apps to help the hearing impaired enjoy phone calls or help the less dexterous send emails without typing. There are apps to magnify text for visually impaired or amplify conversations for the hearing impaired.

6. Ensure Safety

It can be difficult to balance safety with independence. Take elder care, for example. You want an aging relative to enjoy the emotional benefits of staying in their home as long as possible, but you don’t want to worry about them falling and injuring themselves or leaving home and getting lost.

Plenty of emerging tech helps caregivers navigate that tricky relationship between safety and independence. Solutions range from:

• GPS tracking accessories for Alzheimer’s patients
• Apps that alert caregivers if there hasn’t been movement for a significant period
• PERS (Personal Emergency Response Systems) that lets users call for help with the push of a button

7. Provide Support

Being a caregiver is never easy. Even on the best days, there are worries and setbacks, fears and questions. But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, support is only a click away. It can be difficult to find a local support group for your specific situation, but the Internet is home to thousands of blogs, message board and support sites that connect people with shared life situations, no matter the physical distance. Not only do these sites provide emotional support, they also enable users to share research helpful information.

Keep an eye out on the app store, run a Google search or talk with a doctor to learn more about the technology available to help serve your loved one’s specific needs.

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