For senior caregivers whose senior clients speak English as a second language, communication might be difficult. Sometimes, it might be easiest to try to communicate in their first language, whether that be Spanish, French or something different. The busuu app gives caregivers the ability to learn another language for basic communication.
When users first open the busuu app, they are given a list of languages to choose from. These include English, French, Spanish, German, Polish and more. Once users select the language they're interested in learning, they are taken to the home screen for that language.
The first lesson is on how to greet people in that language. The lesson includes a series of phrases, such as Hello, Good Morning and Good Evening, with accompany text and audio of how to say that phrase in the chose language. Users can listen to the audio and repeat the phrase to practice. Then, as the move through the program, the app will toss in occasssional quizzes on prior phrases to help make sure you are retaining the information.
Once caregivers complete the lesson, they can take the brief quiz to verify that they've learned the words. Once they score well on the quiz, they can move onto the next lesson. Lessons 2, 3 and 4 focus on about me, conversations and appearances. These are all little things caregivers can use to interact with their senior clients and give them a sense of familiarity in their first language. If a senior client doesn't speak English, they may also be interested in learning the basics to keep their minds active.
After caregivers complete lessons, they can see all of the words and phrases they've learned on the Review section of the app at any time. Users can also use the social section of the app to review works from users worldwide and correct mistakes.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
- Paige Krzysko
For seniors, one of the best ways to prevent the onset of dementia is to keep the mind active. This doesn't mean that seniors need to be constantly working on complex projects, though. Brain exercise as simple as reading a book, completing a crossword or playing a brain game will keep the cogs turning. The Logic Puzzles app provides caregivers and their senior clients a way to exercise their minds.
The premise of the games in this app is to read clues and figure out the breakdown of the scenario accordingly. For example, the first game in the app focuses on a bobsledding tournament. The clues at the bottom are designated to help users decide who in the puzzle belongs on the team from which country, which of them are partners and what color bobsled they compete in.
The grid above the clues shows all of the possible combinations and as seniors read the clues, they can mark the boxes below as red for not correct or green for the correct combination. For example, one of the clues says that Ted and his partner are the white sled, so the user would select a green box for Ted and the white sled. They could also select a red box for the white sled column under the other users, but they do still need to figure out who Ted's partner is.
Senior caregivers could work on figuring out the clues with their senior clients. Some of the clues offer straight answers about which boxes are correct, while others offer hints that need to be combined with other clues to solve.
Once seniors complete the puzzle and think they know the correct answers, they can select "Check Answers" from the menu in the upper left corner of the app and see how well they did. The app contains 10 different puzzles, so senior caregivers can plan to do one each week with their client and then possibly repeat the puzzles after some time has passed.
The Logic Puzzle app is available for
Apple platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve
caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a
senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
For seniors, keeping the mind active is vital to preventing the onset of dementia. And for their caregivers, finding a way to relieve stress is paramount to a healthy lifestyle. The Penny Dell Crosswords app provides free daily crossword puzzles to meet both of these needs.
When users first download the app and open it, they will be taken on a guided tour through the different areas in the app. These include the Daily Puzzle, the Puzzle Library and the Puzzle Store. Caregivers and their senior clients can complete the daily puzzle for free each day.
When users navigate to the Daily Puzzle section, they will see options for level of difficulty. Caregivers can choose between an Easy, Medium or Hard puzzle. Since the app allows users to complete all three levels of difficulty on any given day, there are actually three puzzles available for free each day.
Once caregivers have selected a puzzle, the app will highlight each row one at a time and display the clue. Users simply need to use the keyboard on their phone to type in the answers. The app will then automatically bring up the clue and number of spaces for the next question. Caregivers can use the arrows on the sides to skip back and forth between clues.
The settings at the top of the app allow caregivers to decide whether or not they'd like the app to highlight incorrect answers. This feature might be helpful because then caregivers and their senior clients will know immediately if they should edit a response before they move onto other clues that share letters with the first response.
Caregivers might enjoy spending half an hour alone in the app, figuring out the clues as a form of stress-relief. This could be a good way to take your mind off the stress of the day and focus on relaxing. For senior clients, it provides a form of exercise for the mind by requiring recall of words and definitions. Caregivers could even team up with their senior clients to work on a crossword puzzle together.
The Penny Dell Crisswords App is available for
Apple platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
For seniors, keeping an active mind plays a large role in preventing the onset of dementia. This doesn't mean that senior caregivers need to pose rigorous challenges to their senior clients on a frequent basis, though. Exercise for the mind can be the equivalent of walking on a treadmill for physical exercise; slow, but still going through the full motions to use the muscles. The Left vs Right app gives senior caregivers a tool to use with their senior clients to exercise their minds.
When users first download the app, it takes them through a series of categories with questions to determine what the user would like to improve upon the most. The six categories covered in the app are awareness, precision, reasoning, patience, adaptability and reflex. The questions in each offer senior clients the ability to improve upon situations from their own lives, such as consistently remembering people and places that they meet and see.
The app then recommends games for the user based on their specific choices during set-up. Before launching into the game, the app takes users through the instructions to ensure they understand the rules. It sets up a basic scenario and provides enough detail along with visuals for users to fully comprehend what they need to do before the game begins.
One of the games for precision requires users to tap smiley faces in the order of their proximity to an "exit." As the game continues, the level of difficulty increases slightly. Another game in the adaptability category requires users to match series of tiles together based on the text color or the words written within the tiles.
Senior caregivers can encourage their clients to use the app multiple times per week to improve their scores and abilities over time. Free accounts will get three new games on a daily basis, which are determined by their answers to the initial questions in the app. If senior caregivers find that their clients greatly enjoy the app and would like to play more, there is a VIP membership option which allows users full access to the games within the app. The app provides a free trial for this level of memberships, so senior clients can try it at no cost to see if they like it.
For senior clients, speed may not be the most important factor in completing the activities. Instead, remind them to focus on completing the goal of each game as it appears to improve their abilities. Simply the act of engaging with the game provides the exercise for the brain that can help prevent dementia.
The Left vs Right: A brain training game app is available for
Apple and
Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
One of the best ways to prevent the onset of dementia is to keep the mind active as we grow older. This can be accomplished in many ways, such as crossword puzzles, reading books on a regular basis or playing little brain games. The Peak - Brain Training app gives senior clients a series of games to play to sharpen their memory skills, improve mental agility and keep their brain active.
When users first download the app, they need to create a profile from a Facebook account or with an e-mail address. The app asks which areas they would like focus on from problem solving, memory, language and focus. Caregivers can help their senior clients pick categories, but there's no issue with selecting all four.
Then, to establish a base point, users need to complete a series of intro exercises. The first exercise shows users a series of three or four tiles with numbers on them and asks them to tap them in order from lowest to highest. This exercise focuses on speed and accuracy.
Another exercise presents a tiled board and shows spots where little mines are hidden. Senior clients need to remember where the mines are hidden because then it shows two dots and the goal is to connect the dots without hitting one of the squares with a hidden mine. This exercise focuses mainly on strengthening memory.
As users move through the exercises, they app assesses their skills and gives them a ranking, from beginner or novice up to expert. As senior clients use the app over time, the app creates personalized workouts to improve their skill sets based on prior performance in the games.
Senior caregivers can sit down with their senior clients a few times a week and take turns playing the games or simply cheer their senior clients on while they complete the exercises. For optimal brain exercise to help offset dementia, use the app about three times a week and pepper the day with other small brain activities, such as reading the newspaper or doing a crossword puzzle.
The Peak - Brain Training app is available for Apple and Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discovers additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
St. Patrick's Day is less than a week away, so along with pulling out a green shirt to avoid getting pinched, caregivers can also help their senior clients celebrate and prevent onset of dementia at the same time. Celtic knots emerged during the Roman Empire in artwork, became part of many Christian monuments and often accompany celebrations of Irish heritage. Caregivers can get in the spirit of the Irish holiday by using the free Celtic Knot game app to help their clients exercise their minds.
The basic elements of a Celtic knot come from interlaced lines that form patterns. When users first begin using the app, they will be presented with a set of scrambled tiles that should make up a Celtic Knot pattern. Users then can drag and drop the tiles using their finger to rearrange them. The goal of the game is to rearrange the tiles to form the knot in the least amount of times and moves possible. The drag and drop feature makes it easy to play with a few taps of the finger.
The puzzles vary in difficulty and pattern type. Some of the patterns make one cohesive and connected figure, while others make a few different shapes on the same board. The level of difficulty ranges from fairly apparent designs to more intricate ones that require a lot of shuffling. The design above is made easier to assemble by the different colors shown on the two shapes. Some other levels have complicated designs with all of the lines in one color.
Exercising the brain on a regular basis remains one of the easiest ways to help prevent the onset of dementia for senior clients. Mixing up the games they play seasonally can help seniors mix it up and stop them from getting bored with doing the same activity repeatedly. The app also offers a difficulty level for the "Wee Folk," or children, so if your senior client has family members visiting then they can play together.
The app also offers a Knot Shop, which takes users to an online store selling various items with Celtic Knot designs. T-shirts, mugs, bags, phone cases etc. feature different designs for caregivers who might be interested. The free version of the app offers a limited number of games with ads present, but if caregivers find their clients enjoy the game enough then they can purchase the paid version with additional levels.
The Celtic Knot app is available for Apple platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discovers additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
It's easy to get stuck in a monotonous routine day in and day out, especially for senior caregivers and their clients. For senior clients, maintaining and using various brain functions on a regular basis helps ensure their mind stays active. Help your senior clients maintain their brain functions and prevent the onset of dementia by using the Elevate app.
Elevate focuses on improving brain functions in core areas such as focus, speech skills, reading comprehension, etc. When users first download and open the app, they are presented with tests specifically designed to measure their current performance in categories such as reading, writing, math, etc. The base scores give users a benchmark to measure all future performance against.
As part of the set up, users also indicate what areas they would like to see improvement in skill-wise. Caregivers can use areas such as the writing brevity test to strengthen writing skills for communicating with the family of a senior client. If senior clients enjoy reading as a hobby, they can improve their reading comprehension by taking advantage of the Processing test, which shows various passages at an increasing words read per minute speed and quizzing users on the content afterwards.
The creators established different levels for users effectively, making sure the introductory quiz matches the content levels of the tests. While a caregiver might fly through a reading test, their senior client may start at a lower level to match their needs. Once users complete the initial set up, the app offers them a weekly learning plan with reminder notifications. After five training sessions, users can visit the Study area of the app to participate in practice exercises in between sessions.
Users can measure their progress week after week by viewing their personal scores under the Performance area of the app. Make it into a fun competition with your senior client by seeing who can improve by the most points over an eight week period. Instead of comparing who has the most overall points, see who can earn the most from their starting point to the end date to make it fair.
The Elevate app is available for Apple and Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
The onset of dementia can come quickly and be incredibly scary for a senior client and their families. Luckily, frequent exercise of the brain helps keep the mind sharp and prevent onset of dementia, or at least lengthen the time before onset. The Wordbrain app provides caregivers with a game for their senior clients to exercise their minds on a regular basis.
The premix of the Wordbrain app is for users to find scrambled letters on a game board to create a word below. For example, if a board has the letters S, O, P and T on a board, users need to swipe across the letters in the correct order to spell a word. However, these four letters spell out several words, such as STOP, TOPS, POTS and SPOT.
Users must swipe through the various combinations until they find the specific word the app is looking for. At first this may seem frustrating because the first word you swipe may not register as the answer. But this truly forces senior clients to work through all the possibilities and keeps their brains engaged as they move the letters around to find various combinations instead of simply the first one that pops into their head.
If users get stuck, there's an option to ask for a hint which will help by displaying the first letter of the word in the box below. Users also have the option to hit the button with two arrows in a circle below, which will shuffle the letters in the boxes above to give a new order and help visualize them in a different way.
As users play, their "Brain Size" within the app grows and accordingly the puzzles get more difficult. The app offers different levels names after types of insects. Users begin in the Ant level and work their way up to unlock the Spider level. Users also have the ability to use their own creativity and create a puzzle to stump their family and friends.
Senior caregivers and their clients could play on this app together and create puzzles for one another to try and beat. Once a user creates a puzzle, they are given a unique code that corresponds with it. When they share that code, all their senior caregiver needs to do is type it in the designated area on the home screen and they're given the puzzle their senior client created for them to solve.
The Wordbrain app is available for Apple and Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
Reading books can take us to a different fantasy world with dragons and wizards, to a different time period such as Medieval Times or simply into the lives of people like ourselves living now. Books also provide a nice stress reliever for caregivers who need to spend some time unwinding at the end of a long day. The Goodreads app allows senior caregivers to track books they are currently reading, make lists of books they'd like to read and get recommendations for book titles they would likely enjoy.
The initial profile creation will ask basic questions and for users to rate 20 books that they read previously. Rating books helps the app make quality recommendations based on what a user has liked in the past. Users can scan through provided categories such as Biography, Music, Fantasy, etc. to find titles that they would like to rate.
The app also features a barcode scan for books using the smartphone camera. Scanning a barcode allows users to then rate the title if read previously, indicate the book as currently reading, or add to the user's individual shelves. The shelves indicate books users would like to read.
In addition to simply making lists, caregivers can set reading challenges for themselves or for senior clients. Reading serves as a great way for seniors to keep their brain active and help prevent onset of dementia, even if they only read a few chapters of a book each day. Caregivers can help their senior clients set a reading goal for the year, whether it be several books a month or only one book every two months.
If users would like further reading recommendations beyond the personalized ones in the app, the Best Books of 2014 list is available at the top of the homepage of the app. Users voted on their favorite books in 20 categories and the results are displayed for easy browsing. Any time a user is considering reading a book, they can read not only the publisher's synopsis, but also user reviews about why they did or did not enjoy a particular title.
The Goodreads app is available for Apple and Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
Preventing dementia or Alzheimer's disease sometimes seems like an abstract idea. It's difficult to know if your efforts are making a difference or to know if you're doing enough to prevent onset. The Memorado app provides brain exercises to help caregivers and their senior clients identify areas of brain activity that they would like to improve and score their results over time.
The app begins by asking users to rank the importance of several different brain functions, such as remembering new names with ease, staying calm in hectic situations, or making fewer errors under pressure. The ranking system uses stars- one star for not very important to three stars for quite important. Once all of the topics have been ranked, the app provides a personalized workout program giving emphasis to areas users most want to improve upon.
The first concentration game the app presented me called "Paint the Sky" presented me with a set of shapes in different patterns. The goal is to click on the one shape on the screen with a unique color or pattern. The next concentration game called "Stepping Stones"displayed circles across the screen with sequential numbers inside. The app asks users to memorize the numbers in the scattered circles, and then once the numbers disappear users need to click on the circles in sequential order of the numbers that were inside the circles. "Painted Path" to improve logic asks users to color a box with a certain number of moves.
Other games focus on memory and reaction. The first round of games took less than ten minutes to complete, but taking a little time out over several weeks to play the games provides a solid foundation for improvement in exercising the brain. Users who wish to unlock further games within the app can earn brain points through completing the basic games or upgrade to the paid version of the app.
The Memorado app is available for Apple platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko