Use Care3 LIKE A BOSS to Care for Loved Ones

Thank you for all you do caring for others! Check out the second video (<6 minutes) where our CEO, David Williams, walks you step-by-step on how to use Care3 like a BOSS to care for loved ones.

https://youtu.be/0qsIuXCyrK8

Bookmark this page so you can refer back to the video.

Questions? Comments? Email us at boss@care3.co/blog. We want to hear from you!

Finally! How to Unleash the Power of Your Smartphone for Family Caregiving

https://youtu.be/r8XxjB_GS04 Finally. It only took 100 seconds for this health technology CEO to reveal the secrets on how to unleash the power of your smartphone to care for loved ones.

He cared for his mother (cancer, COPD, and heart failure) for 10 years prior to her passing and has a son with severe autism, so he knows how hard caregiving can be.

Caregiving requires help. There's so much to do. Technology is supposed to make your life easier. You carry your smartphone everywhere you go, so why not use it to help provide better care for loved ones?

There are a few things to look out for, however. This video talks you through how to think about apps and how to avoid the pitfalls.

You're less than two minutes from better caregiving. Watch the video and use your smartphone to take care of the people you cherish the most.

Thank you for all you do!

(After watching the video, download the FREE Care3 app!)

Care-Sharing - Don't Miss Work, Don't Lose Pay

Have you had to take days off from work due to your caregiving responsibilities? Are you considering retiring early, going part-time or taking a hiatus from the workforce so that you can be more available to take care of your loved one? If so, you are far from alone.

Family caregivers – such as those caring for an elderly parent, a special needs child or a loved one facing a serious illness – are often faced with these difficult decisions when the daily demands of caregiving start to become too much. According to a major study by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, some working caregivers reported having to take a leave of absence (17 percent), shift from full-time to part-time work (10 percent), quit work entirely (6 percent), lose job benefits (5 percent), turn down a promotion (4 percent) or choose early retirement (3 percent).

What are the long-term repercussions of these missed work days? They might be more significant than you think. American businesses lose between $11 billion and $29 billion a year in reduced productivity from working caregivers, according to a recent MetLife study. And the costs for you as a caregiver are even steeper. The same study found that the lost wages/benefits for the average female caregiver – including Social Security and pension payments – totaled an estimated $324,044. For all 10 million caregivers age 50 and over who are caring for a parent, the estimated cost of lost wages/benefits came to staggering $3 trillion.

One way to help prevent missed days and decreased workforce participation is to ensure you have a backup when something happens with your loved one during the work week. How do you do that? The first step is downloading and joining Care3 and building a team of family members and close friends who care about your loved one.

We call this care-sharing.

These are the folks who you know want to help out and have expressed as much. Get them all connected via our iPhone app and discover how simple it is to get help using the simple behavior of text messages, even at the last minute. They’ll all get the message instantly, and by the sheer virtue of having multiple people on your team, it increases the chances that someone is available to pitch in.

As an example, let’s suppose your mother – who lives with you and doesn’t drive – fell down this morning. She says she’s fine, but you’re concerned that something’s wrong or that she might have broken something. Now, instead of your only option being to take a vacation/PTO day, you have the ability to put out a request for help and see if there are any team members available to take your mother to the doctor or ER. Within minutes, you get notified that your retired neighbor Millie, who is close with your family, has volunteered. Now you can relax knowing that your mother will get checked out and that you won’t have to reschedule your big presentation at work. Other team members – including your siblings and cousins – can communicate their relief and gratitude to Millie by sending “Thanks”. And, finally, Millie will feel appreciated and valued due to all those “Thanks” piling up.

Care-sharing. It’s a win-win for you, your family and friends, and your career.

Don't Let Caregiving Hold Back Your Career

You work hard. You have earned that next promotion. Suddenly, you're thrown for a loop because your mom has been diagnosed with a chronic condition. She needs your help and a lot of it. The time you would normally devote to crushing it at work is now dedicated to caring for the person who's cared for you most of your life. Now you're missing work due to caregiving responsibility and that promotion you worked so hard for is in jeopardy. This can't be happening! And yet it is--and you're not alone.

The New York Times published a great article recently highlighting how caregivers must often sacrifice their careers to care for loved ones. The data shows this is all too real, and on a massive scale. The unfortunate truth is that there's a high cost associated with caregiving that goes beyond just the direct costs of providing care and supporting quality of life needs.

Between missing work, declining job performance, and taking a leave of absence, income can fall substantially without having strong support. According to the National Family Caregiving Alliance:

• Among working caregivers caring for a family member or friend, 69% report having to rearrange their work schedule, decrease their hours or take an unpaid leave in order to meet their caregiving responsibilities.
• A reported 37% of caregivers quit their jobs or reduced their work hours to care for someone 50+ in 2007.
• Caregivers overall reported missing an average of 6.6 workdays per year. Approximately 17% of full-time workers missed 126 million workdays each year. 36% of caregivers missed 1-5 days per year while 30% reported missing 6 or more days in the past year.

What You Can Do to Protect Your Career Advancement

You want the best of both worlds. You want that promotion but you also want the time to care for mom. But how? Here are three steps you must take.

Team Up

So how do you alleviate your burden so that you can keep up at work and take proper care of your own health and career? By assembling a team of family and close friends – the ones who are always saying, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do!” – and making it incredibly easy and natural to request help or volunteer to do something. The no-doubt-bottom-line best way to avoid these pitfalls is to share your caregiving responsibilities with family and friends.

Make a Care Plan

Your mom's doctor is required to provide her (and you as a caregiver) with information (e.g., a care plan) to help her reach her optimal level of health following an appointment (or inpatient stay at a hospital). It's your job to turn that care plan into action. Most of the time the care plan is on paper so using technology to automate the tasks is a good idea.

Use Technology for Communication

There are resources and technology available to increase communication with your Care Team. Find something that works for you so you all can share the responsibility. Everything doesn't have to fall on your shoulders!

Investing your time in discovering what combination of services (and help from family and friends) can help in your situation will pay dividends--perhaps literally.

Silence is NOT Golden (And Can Actually Cost You)

Ask us about our jobs and we will go on and on about our industry, company, and our latest highly-deserved promotion. Ask us about our investments and we’ll brag about where we put our money and why it’s a winning strategy. But ask us about our families, and we immediately enter the realm of “polite company.”

Oh everyone’s doing great! The kids are doing well in school. We’re planning our next family getaway. Couldn’t be better. Can’t complain.

Reality might be slightly different.

Your son was suspended for fighting last week. Your daughter failed her spelling test. And that “getaway?” You’re going to your mom’s house again this weekend to take care of her because she has dementia.

We’re silent about this aspect of our lives—that our loved ones are ill—even with people closest to us who genuinely want to help. November is National Family Caregivers Month and it is imperative to shine a light on this silent and widespread situation. Simply stated, family challenges are private and not exactly social networking “I just got a promotion” or “check me out on my vacation” material.

Remaining silent by not sharing the challenge of caring for loved ones when they’re sick can really hurt you—physically, mentally, and financially.

According to data published by the Family Caregiving Alliance, caregiving has substantial impact on the overall lifestyle of the caregiver.

Physically - The need for caregivers to take care of themselves goes under-researched, but some data has been out there for some time.

• 11% of family caregivers report that caregiving has caused their physical health to deteriorate.(1)
• Negative effects of caregiving are greatest for those aged 18-29, followed by 30 to 40 year olds. Caregivers who work full-time say they suffer from poorer physical health than their non-caregiving counterparts. 16% of caregivers working full-time have a Physical Health Index (PHI) score of 77.4%, which is significantly lower than 83.0% for non-caregivers (2)

Mentally - The mental health of caregivers is also under-researched and has perhaps the most important health impact.

• 40% to 70% of family caregivers have clinically significant symptoms of depression with about a quarter to half of these caregivers meeting the diagnostic criteria for major depression.(3)

Financially – There's a real cost associated with caregiving. Between missing work, declining job performance, and taking a leave of absence, income can fall substantially without having strong support.

• Among working caregivers caring for a family member or friend, 69% report having to rearrange their work schedule, decrease their hours or take an unpaid leave in order to meet their caregiving responsibilities.(4)
• A reported 37% of caregivers quit their jobs or reduced their work hours to care for someone 50+ in 2007.(5)
• Caregivers overall reported missing an average of 6.6 workdays per year. Approximately 17% of full-time workers missed 126 million workdays each year. 36% of caregivers missed 1-5 days per year while 30% reported missing 6 or more days in the past year.(6)

The best way to avoid these pitfalls is to share your caregiving responsibilities. There are resources and technology available to reduce the burden. Investing your time in discovering what combination of services (and help from family and friends) can help in your situation will pay dividends--perhaps literally.

So we’re clear—silence isn’t golden as the saying goes. In fact, when it comes to caregiving, silence is a tin-plated lump of coal. Share your situation with close family and friends who genuinely want to help. Responsibility can be shared. You don’t do everything by yourself at work. Why do so when taking care of loved ones?

Break the silence. Share this article. It won’t cost you anything—and may just save two lives.

About David S. Williams III

David S. Williams III is a social entrepreneur and leading innovator in consumer digital health. David is Founder & CEO of Care3, a secure messaging app built specifically for the needs of family caregivers and care advocates. Care3 is David’s fourth venture in the online and mobile consumer health space. Download Care3 on the iTunes App Store.

Sources (from Selected Caregiver Statistics, National Center on Caregiving)

Care3 Walks to End Alzheimer's

Today, Care3 Founder and CEO David Williams participated in the #WalktoEndAlzheimers by the Orange County Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. What an amazing event! So many teams, advocates, caregivers, supporting companies and loved ones all taking action by walking as one.  

According to the Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's impacts 5.3 million Americans of all ages. Here's a shocking statistic: Only 45% of people with Alzheimer's or their caregivers report being told of their diagnosis! Compare that to 90%+ with cancer. Something has to change and Care3 will be part of it.

  

Thanks to the Orange County Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association for putting on such a fantastic event. Care3 is proud to be a Champions Club sponsor.

Team Up - Family and Friends Really Do Want to Help Care for Loved Ones

Are you overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities and costs? Do you feel like it’s ALL on you?

The number of adult children who are caring for an aging parent – either with personal care or financial assistance – has more than tripled in the past 15 years. During this same period, we’ve faced chronic wage stagnation, longer workdays (the US now leads the world in paid hours worked per week), a severe recession and a retirement crisis. This has placed an incredible amount of stress on a generation of middle-aged Americans who are in many cases supporting both their children and parents at the same time. And it’s taking its toll. A recent MetLife study found that adult children 50 and over who are caring for a parent are more likely to have fair to poor health than those who are not caregivers.

Care3 was created with you in mind, as well as those who are caring for a special needs child or a loved one facing a serious illness.

The idea is to leverage the connectivity of the mobile age and the simplicity of text messaging to create a tool that facilitates easy communication, where everyone pitches in and no one feels alone. As we see it, the biggest hurdle to spreading the responsibilities of caregiving amongst many hands is twofold: primary caregivers don’t know how to ask for help, and family and friends don’t know what they can do to help. As a result, the primary caregiver ends up trying to do it all, while other family and friends often feel helpless, guilty and disconnected.

So how do we alleviate your burden so that you can get a break and take proper care of your own health and finances? By assembling a team of family and close friends – the ones who are always saying, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do!” – and making it incredibly easy and natural to request help or volunteer to do something. Care3 enables you to send out one specific message to the entire team – saving the time and energy of making multiple phone calls – and find out quickly who can lend a hand. Family and friends can simply click “accept” to take on a task, or they can message the group expressing their thanks for those who take on the care action.

With Care3, everyone’s in the loop and working together to ensure their loved one is happy and healthy. Some of the ways the care team can help out including providing rides, daycare, social visits, prescription pickups or answers. Team members can also offer to purchase something that a loved one needs – such as diabetic home supplies or a new robe for Pops – to help share the costs. This takes a tremendous weight off to know that there is a group of people there to help you whenever there is a scheduling conflict, a financial crunch or just a really crazy week. No matter how busy life gets, asking for help only takes a few seconds with Care3. And it can make all the difference.

If you are a primary caregiver, start getting the help you need today. Your stress will decrease, your health will benefit, and you’ll be a better caregiver in the long run. Plus, you’ll be giving others who truly want to be involved a chance to do just that, so that everyone feels good knowing that they are contributing and keeping an eye out from both near and far. Instead of being isolated and at the end of your rope, experience the togetherness, support and relief of teaming up with Care3.