Caregiver Connect: A Mobile Application to Reduce Stress Among Unpaid Dementia Caregivers

Unpaid dementia caregivers face high stress and significant coordination burden. We developed Caregiver Connect, a dementia-focused mobile application that consolidates shared scheduling, medication administration logging, daily tracking, and caregiver communication. In a two-week field pilot (n=12), participants completed brief caregiving-related stress ratings three times daily (1-5). Mean daily stress decreased from Day 1 to Day 14 (3.81→1.79). Surveys and interviews suggested perceived improvements in coordination and medication-management confidence, with the shared calendar and medication features rated most useful. Given the small sample, short duration, lack of control group, and use of a single-item stress rating, results are preliminary and motivate longer controlled studies with validated instruments.