Aging In Place Directory

#35 - The Future of Caregiving: How Simplitend Makes Aging in Place Possible

• Esther C Kane CAPS, C.D.S. • Episode 35

Share episode

Got a comment or idea? Send us a text.

Simply Tend is revolutionizing aging in place through an innovative mobile app that connects seniors with caregivers while promoting independence and safety. Founder Saeed Saatchi shares how his personal experience caring for his mother with Parkinson's inspired him to create a comprehensive solution that addresses the real challenges families face in caregiving.

• App works as a two-part system with one app on the senior's phone and another on the caregiver's phone
• Full suite of remote care features including medication management, meal reminders, and activity scheduling
• Robust safety features including spam call blocker, geofencing, and one-touch home directions
• Temporary caregiver handoff feature allows primary caregivers to take breaks without disrupting care
• Affordable pricing at $5.95/month for the caregiver app (senior app is free)
• Cross-platform compatible between Android and Apple devices
• Customizable notifications that can be tailored to each senior's cognitive abilities
• Educational resources including articles and videos about caregiving, Parkinson's, and dementia
• Future plans include adding video calling functionality and AI features to identify health trends

You can find Simply Tend on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, or visit our website to learn more about how we're helping seniors age in place safely.


Thanks for listening!

Sign up to our Homeowners Newsletter - it's a weekly newsletter filled with expert tips and advice on how to age safely and more comfortably in your own home.

If you provide services for modifying homes for disabled or seniors aging in place, sign up to our directory and expand your business.

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, welcome to our podcast. Actually, this podcast is going to be broadcast on two on our Senior Safety Advice podcast and the Aging in Place Directory podcast. So you can catch it on both and, of course, it'll be on YouTube. You know, today we have I'm so excited we have a fantastic guest, saeed Saatchi, the founder and CEO of this wonderful, beautiful mobile app called Simply Tend. He is on a mission, I think, to make aging in place easier and safer for seniors and, of course, their family caregivers and caregivers in general. Simply Tend itself is a mobile app designed to support both family caregivers and seniors in managing the care of older adults, but also helping older adults to live independently. So I'm excited to get into this conversation and learn more about the app and about Saeed and how he is helping to change the landscape of caregiving. So welcome to the show, welcome. Welcome, saeed.

Speaker 2:

Good morning and thank you. I'm very excited to be your guest today. Thank you so much for inviting me, Esther.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I am actually honored. When I first took a look at this app, I was just. You know, I see a lot of apps. I get a lot of emails people selling me their app or telling me about it and they have just a few features. But yours seems very comprehensive. I think it covers just about everything and more. It's the Alexa of apps for caregiving. It's one thing that has everything. So I love that. I love that, but I do have to ask you what inspired you to create this?

Speaker 2:

How did so, yes, in 2010, I became myself and my sister. We became the caregiver for our mother overnight. We moved I live in New Jersey, so we moved our mother, who had Parkinson's at the time. We moved her to New Jersey and we both were working full-time and we both had a family of our own to care for and we became a caregiver. And it was very stressful we had to divide the caregiving responsibility between myself and my sister. But, but you know, so that's how I got involved and when I retired two years ago, I was inspired. I felt inspired to create the app so I can help the family caregivers who are in the same situation.

Speaker 1:

I was so you're definitely coming at it from the perspective of experience.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

You know what it's like.

Speaker 2:

And actually most of the features that we have in the applications. They're influenced by my own experience, what I needed at the time, and that's why we designed it that way yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1:

This, your app, the simply tend app, has a spam call blocker, which I have never seen in any other app. I love the meal reminder, the medication reminders I mean I know those are all available in other tools, you know, but not all in one app. So I love that. I think that that's amazing and the GeoFence feature. Can you talk a little bit more about the individual features of the app?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so at the high level, the application is a remote care application. There are two apps One goes on a senior phone and one goes on a caregiver phone, and that's how they're linked together and that's how we accomplish the remote functionality. What's unique about the app is that it focuses on both seniors and caregivers. So we understand that if we have a remote app, that means that the senior could be home alone at times. So we promote independence and safety, so we want to make sure that a senior stays safe while they're home alone. Number two is that we provide a complete care for the senior, like medication, meal reminder, you know all those that you mentioned. Number three is that we have support, online support for the caregiver, and these are in the form of documentation and videos that we provide for the caregivers. So the whole goal of the application was to support both seniors and also caregivers.

Speaker 1:

What kind of videos?

Speaker 2:

We have self-care videos, oh. I see we have on the app. We actually the app has a section for the caregiver. It has a section in there that every day we show a new article and the articles are, like you know, health information for the senior, videos or some feature about the SimpliTent that we want to highlight for the caregiver, and it changes on a daily basis and but but the caregiver can click a button and look at all the topics and choose whatever topic they want to review and learn about.

Speaker 1:

That's excellent. So it's caregiver training on top of. I can't imagine anything else you could possibly add to this app.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it was that actually came from my own experience. Sure, because when I became a caregiver, I was Googling everything. My mother had Parkinson's. I was Googling, you know Parkinson's, the stages, you know what do I have to do, and you know. So that's why I wanted to add this in there and we are working on it. We keep adding stuff to the database right now, adding different articles, but we wanted to provide some, at least resources for the caregivers so that they can get this information easily.

Speaker 1:

Wow, it's amazing. Does it also have an interactive where they can ask questions and then get answers, or is that coming?

Speaker 2:

Very good question. This is, yeah, this is so what we try to do when we start. We launched the app last February. We launched our application and I've been talking to different caregivers and I've been talking to different caregivers and I've been talking to people who support caregivers and they provided me great information and actually we have updated the app since last February Actually four times. We just launched a new update last week and we're learning, you know, and we try to keep the app simple and it was very important for us to make sure that both senior app and caregiver apps are simple and some of the features that actually we didn't know how to make it user-friendly, we didn't include in the app and as we're learning, so you have a great point regarding the two-way conversation on some of these topics and I think it's a great idea. Once we learn how to implement those simply or user-friendly, we will do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you're right, that's very important about keeping it user-friendly, because it can have all the bells and whistles, but you're right, if people find it difficult to use, then it doesn't matter, so do you? Then what kind of feedback are you getting from your clients, from your customers who are currently using it? And I have to tell you that I think the price point that you put this at is an excellent price point. You can talk a little bit about that and then tell us what feedback you're getting.

Speaker 2:

So, regarding your feedback, you know, as I said, I try to. I go to the shows and also I try to go to some of the senior centers and I sit down with the folks and actually we have very good conversations. We go through the app and they have given me great feedback, you know. And, for example, the meal reminder. I didn't have the meal reminder in the app when we launched in february. We added in there. We have added a feature regarding temporary caregiver. Most family members you can. You can do caregiving 24 77. You need a break, you need to get a day off, you need to go to work or whatever. So the feedback we got was can you add a temporary caregiver? So we did that. Now you can.

Speaker 2:

In the app you can select a friend or family member and put their emails in there and they have access to the same information. They can download the app Now they can see the medication schedule, their activity schedule, they get all those notifications. In addition, we have care information in the app. What that I mean is that you have doctor's name in their contact information, the hospital contact information, a senior's allergy information, the diet requirements, the daily needs they have, if they need to, you know, help to get dressed or they help to for meal preparation. All that information is in the app. So when the temporary caregiver gets access to the app, they have all that information. So the primary caregiver doesn't have to explain all that information to the temporary caregiver.

Speaker 2:

Okay, when is the time for them to eat, or when is the time for the medication? They have all those in the app that have access to it and it reduces the error, you know, and the stress. You know. I was a caregiver between me and my sister. We had to write things down to make sure that what she did, what she did and what I'm doing, and what she learned, what you know, what I learned from what we were doing. You know, because every day, you know, her symptoms were different, every day something was different, but my mother that we had to communicate you know, yeah, exactly as you said, the stages, as she progressed it, right.

Speaker 1:

Right, I'm sorry you had to go through that with your, with your mother thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

So so this app it provides that information. It's all in the app. So the temporary caregiver would download the app. They have access to it and then all the notifications will go to temporary caregiver and when the primary caregiver comes back from their, to temporary caregiver. And when the primary caregiver comes back from their break, they can disable that and all the notification comes back to the primary caregiver, that's excellent, excellent.

Speaker 2:

You mentioned about the pricing. Yeah, as I said, there are two applications. The senior app is free. The caregiver pays $5.95 a month. We wanted to make sure. I mean to be honest with you. The caregivers pay a lot of money out of pocket when they're a caregiver. That's true and you know. You don't realize that. You know because when you're in the mode of caregiving you know, you just do it because it's you know it has to be done and I didn't want to make the app too expensive for the caregivers. And it's $5.95 a month. The senior app is free. The temporary caregiver app is also free, so it's only one price.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. You know, keeping it simple. You know I, as an occupational therapist, I worked in home health for a little while, for a year, and I mostly I specialized in in brain trauma, head injury, in geriatrics, and I mean something like this would have been amazing because, you're right, walking into someone's home who they rarely get the same caregiver on a consistent basis. You know they have family, of course, but then you know someone on Tuesday, someone on Thursday, someone on Friday, and then sharing that information amongst all those people is not so easy. Like you said, there's a lot of notes on the kitchen counter, you know, next to the medicine. This is what happened, this is what I did, this is what she, he, did, you know. So you're right, having an app like this is is excellent. I wish that had been around back then, but yes, me too.

Speaker 1:

Well, you've done an amazing job putting it together. What prompted you to put in the spam call blocker?

Speaker 2:

feature. Yes, so when we talk about the safety, there are like two levels of safety. I wanted to address. One was the whole smartphone safety. You know, and, uh, when? Because I don't know about you, but I get many, many calls during the day and there are sales calls, there are spam calls and we get ourselves into trouble sometimes. You know, and even you know I, I had a friend this wasn't my, my mother actually experienced, but we had a friend who actually spent fifteen thousand dollar on target gift cards from a spam call oh my god, so so.

Speaker 2:

So it was critical for us to block those spam calls, and the way we do it is when senior downloads the application, they create a friend and family contact list.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And if the call comes in and it's not part of that friends and family contact list, it goes to the voicemail. So the senior won't get that call and they can disable it. If they don't want that, they can disable the feature, they can turn it off or turn it on. The other part of the smartphone that I thought it was important was you know, these smartphones come in with many, many applications in there.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

They're preloaded with many applications. Some of these applications they have a lot of advertising in there. Some are banking applications. So the other feature in there you can block from certain apps from opening.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So senior won't have access to those apps. Okay, they can simply use the other apps on their phone, but some apps doesn't open, so we have that feature also in there and from the phone. Again from phone safety, one thing was important was the battery, reminding seniors to charge their phones.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so we have in there. If the battery goes below 25%, the senior will get a reminder. Below 25 percent, the senior will get a reminder. But the caregiver also gets a reminder that you know, remind your loved one to charge their battery. So those three features mainly focus on the smartphone features. The other part of the safety was we wanted to make sure that seniors not only safe at home but also outdoors. You know, I mean, I'm a senior, me too. I go for a walk all the time, you know, and sometimes you know you get disoriented, you don't know where you are. So we have added a button, a pre-programmed button on the phone that is pre-programmed to their home address. So they can press a button. They get walking direction to their home. So that's one feature and the caregiver will get notified that, hey, you know they're lost. You may want to contact them, okay. Number two feature is that the caregiver always knows seniors real-time location. So at all times they can click a button. They can see seniors real-time location.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Number three is geofence that you mentioned. So the caregiver can set the parameter you know, like a mile from home or two miles from home, right? And when the senior crosses that boundary, two things happen. One is senior gets a text message that is customized by the caregiver. You know you can put anything in there. Senior will get a text message. Number two is caregiver will get a notification that they went too far from home. So these two, I mean the three features that we put in there to take care of our seniors when they're outdoor.

Speaker 1:

It's excellent. I mean it's a full featured app. Not only, I mean I can see where all those safety features can help an older adult to live more independently but at the same time give the caregiver that peace of mind. You mentioned the list of contacts. How many contacts can be on that list? Is it unlimited or is there a certain number?

Speaker 2:

No, so the 10, default is 10.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

But they can change it to 50.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's a lot Okay.

Speaker 2:

So you can be 10. That's also feedback. We updated that since we launched the application. So what we do on the contact list a key feature on the contact is you put in your contacts in there, but we also put the relationship there. So when you look at the picture of the contact or name, it's okay, this is my brother, this is my friend. So that way if they have some memory issues when they look at the contact, it reminds them okay, this is my sister or my brother or my friend that you know I want to call, so that's also included in the in the contacts okay.

Speaker 1:

So if it was, let's say as, and your sister, so both you and your sister have the app on your phone, and then your mother would have the app on her phone. So when a medication reminder comes up, does it come up on both you and your sister's phone. Both of you get the same no.

Speaker 2:

No, the caregiving is actually one-on-one.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So one caregiver to one senior. So if my sister, for example, is primary caregiver, she would get a notification. If, let's say, on the weekend I'm caring for my mother, then she would assign me Now, on the weekends'm caring for my mother, then she would assign me now okay, on the weekends I get the notification. She doesn't see the notification. She still sees, you know. Then she has access to the app so she can see all that information, but she doesn't get the notification. I will get the notification and then when on monday, she can switch back and she will start getting notifications.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

We thought that actually having two people get notifications it may get complicated, yeah, and who would be in charge? You know what I mean, Right? Who responds? Who responds? Right, If I'm calling my mother and she's calling my mother, it's like it's too much. You know, it's okay. Who's in charge?

Speaker 1:

It's true, it's true. My mother-in-law lived to 102. So I can tell you that she would have been very confused if she had gotten too many phone calls. She wouldn't know who to speak to and she would have thought, probably that did. I already tell you this, you know me calling the other person Right?

Speaker 2:

Good point you brought up. You know one other capability we have in there. There's a lot of small features that we put in there Based on the feedback from one of our users. The senior didn't want to see notification. They would get agitated. So there are capabilities in there that actually you can turn off the notifications for the senior. Only the caregiver would get notification. Also, the caregiver can customize the notification. Okay, I don't want to see the meal reminders, I don't want to see medication reminders or you know other stuff. They can customize that.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense, because if someone say the early stages of dementia, you don't necessarily need all those reminders, but in the mid to late stages you may need them, so you can turn them on and off, which which is very smart. The, the uh, caregiving, um training or information that you have for the caregivers, is it broken down by? Um, you know, for parkinson's, for head injury, for dementia, is it broken down that way?

Speaker 2:

yes, so we have right now I have four categories. I said this is something that actually, um, we're working on and we are keep adding to it every day oh yeah, it'll be evolving, for sure the four category in self-care, and number two is Parkinson's, dementia and SimpliTen features.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

You know and I have tons of information right now, since we just added the updated app, so I have to go back in a database and add more information to our database.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure you're constantly working on that. Do you see any impact on all the recent AI technology that's coming out? Do you see that impacting the app in any way, or how do you see the two of them integrating eventually?

Speaker 2:

That's a very good question. I think the AI is going to help long-term, because let me give you some scenarios. For example, like you know, if the senior goes for a walk one day, you know for the first six months and they don't get lost, they don't use the you know direction button and uh, and then later on you see them using using direction button. You know once a month, twice a month, three times a month. Some of these, some of these things. You can see a trend. You know that. Hey, you know, looks like the trend is going up. Yeah, and how would that? You know? Maybe you can communicate that to the, to the primary doctor. Yeah, you know, now I see him. You know you can go based on the data when you talk to the doctor. You know, I see him. You know getting lost. You know once a month. Or I see him getting lost twice a month, or has increased, you know. Or he forgets to eat his breakfast, you know.

Speaker 2:

So those are the things I feel that AI could help us, you know, and you know including it in there. The other part of the AI that could help us, you know, is what you mentioned early on regarding information that we communicate to the caregiver.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It would be great for the caregiver to type in some questions and you know we have a back-end AI that can go search for it. We may not have it in the database but the back-end can go search for the information and present it to the database. But the backend can go search for the information and present it to the caregiver. Those are the other areas that AI could be very useful for us.

Speaker 1:

It will be very interesting to see. I mean, I can't imagine what the world is going to look like five years from now with the impact of AI. I'm honestly just very blown away by this app. I think I mean I'm definitely going to be writing a few articles on it. You have a video showing the process of the apps on YouTube or on the website itself, because I don't think I saw one.

Speaker 2:

You mentioned how the app operates.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like the look of it. Yeah, yes, okay.

Speaker 2:

So I have a YouTube channel yes, that I can send it to you. Yes, and we have many YouTube, youtube uh videos there. Okay, part of it is you know, you know what features are in there and how it works. And then we also have how to videos. Okay, how to set it up, how to set up the you know caregiver, you know the temporary caregiver feature. How to set up. You know how how to block the apps in your smartphone. So we have a lot of hot information in there. We have how the app works and the features of that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I may integrate some of that in the YouTube video. With this interview, do you foresee any collaborations with you know, I don't know home health agencies or other companies to use this app, for them to use it, or is it strictly you want to keep it as caregiver and senior?

Speaker 2:

I'm open, you know, to have that. You know, have that conversation and I think some aspects of it could be very useful. If you're with the agency and you know, even we can customize it for the certain agencies with our database, backend database, so specific information for their users, something like that, so it could be beneficial to do that, you know. So I'm open, you know, for that conversation.

Speaker 1:

I can certainly see it as a product. You know, as someone who goes in to assess someone's home for aging in place, you know just like they're recommending anything a shower chair, widening doorways, you know whatever they're recommending. I can see them recommending this as a tool like to recommend are, you know, the smart home devices, the thermostat, the video cameras, you know, and the doorbell, anything like that. But I can see this being part of that tool chest of products to recommend, especially since it is so affordable. And my personal feeling is, you know there's two blocks to aging in place for a lot of seniors. One is emotional you know it's difficult to admit you're getting older and that you need certain things and you don't want to make changes to your home. And then two is just simply the cost of making these changes to your home. So having anything that you can use that is affordable and so extremely useful, as this is, I think it's a no-brainer to have. I think you're going to be very successful with this product.

Speaker 2:

But the scenario that you mentioned regarding recommendation that's already working with a few people Good, they can add our application on their website or in their list to recommend to people. Yes, that's already been done.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Good, very good. Well, is there anything else that you wanted to tell us about this wonderful product, and I can't wait to to write an article about it.

Speaker 2:

What else? Oh, regarding the just the senior care, one thing I wanted to add was that the so we have medication management, we have activity management in there and we have they also can put their doctor's appointments. You know in there we have meal reminder. So all those information resides on a senior app. You know the caregiver has remote access to it because of remote care. They have remote access. They can update like a medication, they can add a medication or change the time. They have access to all that remotely and what it is what we put on the senior app because again goes back to senior independence, so that way when senior is home alone, they still follow the structured routine. They take the medication on time, they they get a notification, they go to their activities, you know, they see. So if they are independent they can follow their own routines and schedule. That apps tells them. But if they need help, you know, then the caregiver would remind them. So I just want to add that.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. Well, saeed, I want to thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. I do appreciate it. I can't wait to get this out and get feedback, you know, on the interview and the article itself.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Thank you very much. I enjoyed the discussion. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. No-transcript. No-transcript. How would this work for the senior who's traveling? Well, I mean.

Speaker 2:

It works.

Speaker 1:

It would work for the location. Location like to let the caregiver know where they are yeah um all the medication schedules and stuff would work.

Speaker 2:

Still, yeah and uh. And the other thing, um, if they, let's say caregiver, I mean let's say senior, um goes, I mean New Jersey, it goes to, let's say, maryland to see their friend, you know, the caregiver can change the address, their home address, to the Maryland where they are there.

Speaker 2:

So now they can. If they go for a walk, they know the location there. If they go for a walk, they get the same notification. They get lost, they get the same notification, or geofence would work. You know a mile or half a mile around that location and then when they come back home the caregiver can change the location to their home address and that would update it. But everything would work normally as long as you are in united states or canada.

Speaker 1:

So our apps will be in us and canada okay, all right, I think that'll be good and I didn't want to ask you in in the uh interview, but do you, um, does this work, because I know there's some apps that will work on the phone and on a smartwatch does this work on a smartwatch as well?

Speaker 2:

so the notification, if you set it up, it will show up on the smartwatch. That's the function of the smartwatch, you know, because when you go in the smartwatch you say, okay, which notification I want to see on my watch? Correct, you can select this app.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And the notification will show up there.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yes.

Speaker 2:

Okay. One other thing I forgot to mention was that there are two applications, one for senior, one for caregiver, and they're cross-platform compatible. What that means is that if the senior has an Apple phone and the caregiver has an Android, they still would work, or vice versa.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's a good. I'm going to include that. That's a very good point. I didn't even think about that. Very good point.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so because that was complicated, you know, to make sure that you know the apps are still communicating with each other, they still work, it doesn't matter what platform you have.

Speaker 1:

You must have come across a lot of challenges putting this together, Technically I mean.

Speaker 2:

Yes, oh, I mean we started off, we wanted, because most of the application you see in the market, for example, you see application, gaming application or even flight, you know United Airlines has an app. You know those are actually designed with one app that works both on Android and Apple because they write it at the higher level. Because of the complexity of this applications, we actually had to write four applications two for android, two for apple's apple phone, so one senior, one caregiver for apple and one senior, one caregiver for android, and they had to be working together. All four had to be working together.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my goodness, oh, I can't even imagine. There must've been a lot of sleepless nights. That's all I can think of.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it took us like a year to come up, to actually design the app and launch it.

Speaker 1:

Wow. How do you see the app changing in the next year, or two or five?

Speaker 2:

How many changes?

Speaker 1:

How do you see it changing? How do you see it evolving?

Speaker 2:

So I mean one feature that I've been, you know we've been talking about including was like a video call. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:

I think that's important, you know, for the caregiver. You know, have a video call through the app with the senior. The challenge that we had initially that we did include did not include it was because when you use a video call then you're using data and people have to you know, know, make sure that they have during the good, like a wi-fi, or they have 5g or 4g, so that one complexity. The other one was, you know, the data call cost is different, you know. So you want to make sure that I didn't want nickel and dime the senior that, okay, you can only have a video call for 30 minutes or you can only have it for an hour. We want to make it unlimited.

Speaker 2:

So you have a video call. You know you can be on a call for like an hour, don't worry about it, you know. So that's what we talk about simple, right, right. Simple for the, for the user. So I think we have figured it out how to do it. So in the next six months to you know, nine months, we may add that. You know to the, to the app and the other thing you mentioned about the AI thing. I think that's to be honest with you, that's a big phase, the next phase, that you know that we could add it, you know, next year or so.

People on this episode

Contributor

Esther C. Kane, CAPS, C.D.S.

Host