Connectedness is critical for seniors, and tech can help. This guide can help you set up your loved one for success with the right apps for healthy living!

Combat Cognitive Decline with Apps

Our phones go with us everywhere and connect us with our aging loved ones. Remember, you are an essential catalyst in helping your senior navigate tech that improves his or her daily life, health, and comfort. At Amber Court, we understand the role of personal connection in making tech easy for seniors. Our focus on memory care in our state-of-the-art Alcove community is one example of how our holistic approach is informed by industry experts, but the journey doesn’t stop there.

Integrating tech into your loved ones’ lives is achieved with the encouragement and attention you provide in conjunction with support from our nurturing caregivers. Technology can be critical in improving the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of our seniors, and empowering them to use it is the first step. Here are a handful of the best apps for seniors today. Download them and get acquainted with the benefits they offer.

Reading & Reminder Apps

Reading and reminder apps improve the safety and health of the elderly and can go a long way to preserving independence. Seniors who face challenges accomplishing simple daily tasks remind us not to take reading and memory for granted.

Magnifying Glass + Flashlight

Reading small print is challenging as we age. Magnifying Glass + Flashlight is a simple magnifying app that uses your phone’s camera to zoom in on whatever you point it at. Easily illuminate the text on a menu in a dimly lit restaurant by switching the flashlight on. Reading medication and food labels and forms in a doctor’s office without straining is made possible again with this effective and convenient app.

Medisafe

Medisafe is a free, user-friendly, and secure medication-tracking app. Receive personalized reminders for taking your meds on time. It’s easy to forget to take your pills, especially during the onset of dementia, but Medisafe is an effective pill-reminder designed to alleviate oversight and ensure you’re following the correct dosage with real-time missed medication alerts connected to your caregivers.

My House of Memories

History comes to life with images, sound, music, and descriptions in My House of Memories, an app designed to strengthen and support cognitive function for individuals with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Connect with loved ones while you reminisce over objects and memories from the past. An easy-to-use tour of the past is curated for you to enjoy with family and friends and improve your memory. Safely and privately add memories from your own personal experience to share with others in a heartfelt timeline you can access from your smartphone.

LastPass

You don’t have to grow old to forget passwords, but remembering them isn’t a big deal with LastPass. Securely store all your passwords in one place. Protect your online security from hackers by remembering a single password that gives you access to all the other passwords you have to remember when you store them in LastPass.

 

Brain Games Apps

Mental exercises you can easily perform every day are fun and accessible when strengthening your cognitive ability is a top priority. Prepare your mental faculties with these great brain games for seniors.

Lumosity

Lumosity presents a series of memory, attention, problem solving, flexibility, speed, language, and math exercises to keep your brain sharp. Varying levels of complexity accommodate your skills after a brief evaluation. Memory and color-themed matrixes test your ability to remember and recognize shapes, words, patterns, sounds, and more. Improve your spatial recall and increase your mind’s potential with Lumosity.

Peak

Play over 45 unique games and coach your brain to its peak performance with Peak. A library of versatile workouts improves focus and mental agility, measures emotions, and encourages a positive mood with games you can play, some in under five minutes when you’re short on time. Track your evolution and receive data-driven feedback as your performance evolves.

Cognifit

Your cognitive health is front and center with Cognifit, an app that measures 23 critical skills in categories that include spatial perception, response time, visual perception, planning, updating, shifting, driving, and working memory. Improve your aptitude for concentration, coordination, reasoning, and memory as you integrate these mental workouts into your day.

Elevate

Boost your self-confidence and productivity with math, reading, writing, speaking, and recall exercises from Elevate. Track your improvement and receive valuable evaluations of your performance from an app that appeals to all ages and can vastly improve your response time. Students, professionals, and the aging can unlock much potential with this critically acclaimed app.

 

Social & Entertainment Apps

Let’s not overlook common outlets for staying in touch with aging loved ones to prevent isolation, pass time, entertain, and inspire. While most of us rely on these apps as a part of our daily routines, it’s easy to assume elderly loved ones are as familiar with how they work as we are, but that’s not always the case. Taking the time to install them and provide a useful tutorial can greatly improve your seniors’ experience and ability to connect.

Facebook (Meta)

Facebook (now Meta) needs little introduction as one of the world’s largest social media platforms, boasting over 2.89 billion users today. Finding elderly relatives and loved ones on Facebook isn’t hard, but have you engaged them recently? Could they use more nurturing in the digital sphere to stay in touch? Taking the time to outline the features and navigate this household tech with your seniors can make a big difference in their lives, particularly as the apps are updated and the user interface changes over time. Show your aging loved ones how to create their own profiles and how to access yours to shrink the distance between you. Staying in touch with vital connections improves health and can add hours of daily fulfillment to their lives.

Help your elderly loved ones get the most out of their Facebook experience with Facebook Groups! No matter what their passions, from pictures of generations past to the most niche types of pasta from remote Italian villages, there’s a group for it! This helps your loved ones connect faster and more directly with others who share the same interests. Also, staying active in groups can help cut out the mental clutter of the main news feed which, in excess, can have its own risks.

Know how to set the correct privacy settings – even the youngest users aren’t familiar with the customization available with respect to privacy, or the amount of personal information available to others if those settings aren’t properly set to the user’s liking.

 

Netflix

The sheer volume of films available on Netflix is daunting with over 15,000 titles to choose from. While few of us are strangers to binge-watching our favorite films or the latest docuseries, aging retirees have far more time on their hands. Set them up with an account and show them how to find films from their favorite eras.

Spotify

Because music is a natural source of inspiration, give your seniors access to apps like Spotify, so they can enjoy the benefits of programming tailored to their taste the same as we do. With over 381 million active monthly users, the world’s largest music streaming service offers an ideal avenue for encouraging elderly loved ones to embrace technology.

Zoom

Seeing an elderly loved one smile into the camera is a whole different experience than logging onto to a Zoom call for work. This household videoconferencing software is something aging individuals marvel at, and seeing familiar faces adds a wonderful dimension of relevance and belonging to their day. When regularly meeting in person isn’t feasible, a Zoom call can uplift your senior, increase their connectedness, and stimulate engagement with loved ones at a greater frequency.

Keep Medical Information Organized – and Shareable!

October is “Organize Your Medical Information” Month, but it’s something most of us don’t think about until far too late, when we’re not able to find something important. With an app like MyChart, your smartphone can serve as a bridge between all your healthcare providers and your loved ones! Even across different health networks, you can keep everything from medication to test results in the hands of the people who care for you.