Q. What are five simple tasks that everyone can and probably should do on a loved one’s smartphone?
A. First, ask if your loved one has all their bank accounts accessible from their smartphone. If not, work with them to set up access.
Most banking apps provide a place to name a beneficiary for the account. That simple task—adding beneficiaries to the account—allows you to pass ownership on funds quickly, which can help with final expenses. It may also make it easier for you to print bank statements and get a clear picture of their finances.
Second, make sure all the passwords are accessible. Use an app to organize passwords. Confirm you have recovery steps for critical passwords, especially for any Apple or Google IDs.
Third, if the smartphone owner has unsteady hands, considering using the features in Accessibility to make a screen of large buttons for commonly used apps. Everything visible on a smartphone screen can be distracting; It is much better to hide anything irrelevant. Voice control can help here, also. Play around with spoken commands and see what feels seamless.
Fourth, make sure that important contacts in are the phone.
Fifth, if you have used some of the filtering features to suppress nuisance calls and texts, use the breakthrough feature to make sure if you call from your phone, your loved one’s device will ring.
Five simple tasks: bank account beneficiaries, password recovery, hiding unneeded apps, keep important contacts up to date, and make sure their “do not disturb” mode has a breakthrough that recognizes your phone for emergency calls.
Q. How can home delivery services help when providing home health support for a loved one?
A. Home food delivery, once mainly the domain of Chinese takeout and pizza, is everywhere nowadays.
Recently, DoorDash has been my go-to service. I’ve sat in my living room and arranged for deliveries in other cities. A friend recovering from surgery needs fresh dressings at 9 p.m., another loved one who is unable to drive wants a special treat, or maybe a new mom in your family is about to run out of diapers.
In addition to services like UberEats and DoorDash, there are also services run by major retailers. In my area, Costco offers same day delivery via a partnership with Instacart. Wal-Mart and most major supermarkets also support delivery services. And remember, most supermarkets include a pharmacy.
There are several of these services, and if you live outside a big city one of the services might work better in your area compared to others.
Find out now, when there is no pressure, how these services work, and which one works best near you.
Trust my experience: These are not luxuries. Especially during the initial disruptive days of home health care, the ability to get food and other essentials delivered can help smooth the transition, plus serve as a backup for unexpected needs.
Q. Are there apps that can help you take care of a loved one during an illness?
A. One of the core skills needed to provide home healthcare is managing data. Medications, appointments, symptom logs—the entire process can feel overwhelming to learn in the first place—let alone to deliver support day after day.
There are many apps that can help track all these details and more, but I want to share one that I think is special. C1B (c1b.app) is a new app from Adam Tow (tow.com), a longtime Apple developer who created this app as a labor of love to help him track his father’s cancer journey.
Apps built by experienced programmers that solve a need in that programmer’s life are often extraordinary values. They tend to be apps which are less costly and more feature rich compared to apps designed by a committee.
Although this app appeared too late for me to use with a recent family member’s passing, I wholeheartedly recommend it based on its feature set and Adam’s reputation as a programmer and speaker in the Apple community.
Bob has been writing about technology for over three decades. He can be contacted at techtalk@bobdel.com.
