Hey everyone, welcome to the Aging in Place directory
podcast, your go -to resource for everything
you need to know about aging comfortably and
safely at home. I'm Esther Kane, a retired occupational
therapist and a certified Aging in Place specialist.
Each week I'll bring you expert advice, inspiring
stories, and practical tips to help you and or
your loved ones thrive at home. So let's get
started. 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 Sachi, 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.
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 Said and
how he is helping to change the landscape of
caregiving. So welcome to the show. Welcome,
welcome Said. Good morning and thank you. I'm
very excited to be your guest today. Thank you
so much for inviting me Esther. 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 telling 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? How did the whole thing start?
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 caregiver and it was
very stressful. We had to divide the caregiving
responsibility between myself and my sister.
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 that I was. So
you're definitely coming in from the perspective
of experience. Yes. You know what it's like.
And actually most of the features that we have
in the applications, the applications that are
influenced by my own experience, what I needed
at the time. And that's why we designed it that
way. Yeah, I love that. Your app, the SimplyTend
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, 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? Yes. 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 they 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. What kind of
videos? We have self care. videos that we have
on the app. We actually the app has a section
in there for the caregiver 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.
But the caregiver can click a button and look
at all the topics and choose whatever topic they
want to review and learn about. That's excellent.
So it's caregiver training on top of I can't
imagine anything else you could possibly add
to this. I mean, it was it was that actually
came from my own experience. Because when I became
a caregiver, I was googling everything my mother
had Parkinson's, I was googling, you know, Parkinson
to stages, you know, what do I have to do? And,
you know, so 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. Wow. It's amazing.
Does it also have an interactive where they can
ask questions and then get answers? Or is that
coming? Very good question. So what we tried
to do when we started, we launched the app last
February. We launched our application 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 app since last February. Actually,
four times. We just launched a new update last
week. And we are learning. 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.
Yeah. 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. 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 the
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 is an excellent price point. You can talk
a little bit about that and then, you know, tell
us what feedback you're getting. So regarding
your feedback, you know. As I said, 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.
For example, the meal reminder. I didn't have
the meal reminder in the app when we launched
in February. We added it in there. We have added
a feature regarding temporary caregiver. Most
family members, you can't do caregiving 24 -7.
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, 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, seniors allergy information,
the diet requirements, the daily needs they have
if they need to help to get dressed or they help
for meal preparation. All that information is
in the app. So when the temporary caregiver gets
access to that, they have all that information.
So the primary caregiver doesn't have to explain
all that information to the temporary caregiver.
Okay, when is the time for them to eat or when
is it time for the medication? They have all
those in the app that access to it and it reduces
the error. You know, and a 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. Yeah, exactly. As you
said, the stages as she progressed. Right, right.
I'm sorry you have to go through that with your
mother. Thank you. Thank you. So this app, it
provides that information. It's all in the app.
So the temporary caregiver will 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 break, they can... disabled that and all
the notes because she comes back to the primary
caregiver. Excellent. Excellent. 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 you even
you're in the mode of caregiving, you know, you
just do it because this, you know, it has to
be done. And I didn't want to make the app too
expensive to do for the for the caregivers. And
it's $5 .95 a month. The senior app is free.
The temporary caregiver app is also free. So
there's only one price. Excellent, you know,
keeping it simple. You know, as an occupational
therapist I worked in home health for a little
while, for a year. And I'm mostly, I specialized
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 they, 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 next to
the medicine. This is what happened. This is
what I did. This is what she, he did. So you're
right. Having an app like this is excellent.
I wish that had been around back then. Yes, me
too. Well, you've done an amazing job putting
it together. What prompted you to put in the
spam call blocker 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 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 had
a friend, this wasn't my, my mother actually
experienced, but we had a friend who actually
spent $15 ,000 on target gift cards from a spam
call. So, so, so It was critical for us to block
those spam call. And the way we do it is when
senior downloads the application, they create
a friend and family contact list. And if the
call comes in and is not part of that friends
and family contact list, it goes to the voicemail.
So the senior won't get that call. 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 these smartphones come in
with many, many applications in there. They're
preloaded with many applications. Some of these
applications, they have a lot of advertising
in there. Some are banking applications. The
other feature in there, you can block from certain
apps from opening. So Senior won't have access
to those apps. 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 battery reminding seniors to
charge their phones. So that's a good one. Yes.
So we have in there, if the battery goes below
25%, 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 that those three features mainly focused 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 the home address. So they can press a button,
they can walk in direction to their home. So
that's one feature. Okay. 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 senior's
real time location. So at all times they can
click a button, they can see real time, senior's
real time location. Okay. Number three is is
geofence that you mentioned. So the caregiver
can set the parameter, you know, like a mile
from home or two miles from home. 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.
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? No. So the 10 default is 10. Okay. But
they can change it to 50. Oh, that's a lot. Okay.
So you can be 10 or that's also feedback. We
updated that, you know, since we launched it,
uh, launch 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 context. Okay. So if it
was, let's say, as you and your sister. So both
you and your sister have the app on your phone,
and then your 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, no, the
caregiving is actually one on one. Okay. So one
caregiver to one senior. So if the my sister,
for example, is primary caregiver, she will get
a notification. If let's say, on the weekend,
I'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, 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. Okay.
We thought that actually having two people get
notifications, it may get complicated. yeah and
who is you know then who would be in charge you
know i mean right who responds who respond right
if i if i'm calling my mother and she's calling
my mother is like it's too much you know it's
okay who's in charge it's true it's true my um
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, the other person. Right. Good point you
brought up. 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,
you know, they will get agitated, you know, they,
you know, so there are capabilities in there
that actually you can turn off the notifications
for the, for the senior. Okay. Only the caregiver
will get notification. Okay. 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, they can customize that. 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 is very smart. The caregiving training
or information that you have for the caregivers,
is it broken down by, you know, for Parkinson's,
for head injury, for dementia? Is it broken down
that way? Yes. So we have, right now I have four
categories. I said, this is something that actually
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 there. One is that self
care. And number two is Parkinson's dementia
and simpleton features. Okay. I have tons of
information right now since we just updated the
app. So I have to go back in a database and add
more information to update. 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?
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 first six months and they don't get lost,
they don't use the, you know, direction button.
And then later on, you see them 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. And how would that, you know, maybe you can
communicate that to the, to the primary doctor.
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,
so the things I feel that AI could help us, you
know, and including it in there. The other part
of the AI that could help us is what you mentioned
early on regarding information that we communicate
to the caregiver. It would be great for the caregiver
to type in some questions. And we have a backend
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 caregiver.
Those are the other areas that AI could be very
useful for us. 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 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. You mentioned how the app operates.
Yeah, like the look of it. Yeah. Yes. So I have
a YouTube channel. Yes. that I can send it to
you. Yes, we have many YouTube videos there.
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
how to block the apps in your smartphone. So
we have a lot of how -to information in there.
We have how the app works and the features of
that. Okay. I may integrate some of that in the
YouTube video with this interview. Do you foresee
any collaborations with, 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 us and senior I'm
open, you know to have that, you know, obviously
conversation and I think some aspects of it it
could be very useful if the agency and You know
Even we can customize it for the certain agencies
with the our database backend database. So specific
information for their users, something like that.
So it could be beneficial to do that. So I'm
open for that conversation. I can certainly see
it as a product, as someone who goes in to assess
someone's home for aging in place. Just like
they're recommending anything, a shower chair,
widening doorways, whatever they're recommending,
I can see them recommending this as a tool. you
know, one of the things that I 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 I mean,
my personal feeling is, you know, there's there's
two blocks to aging in place for a lot of seniors
is 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.
I think it's a no -brainer to have. I think you're
going to be very successful with this product.
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. 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 write an article
about it. What else? Oh, regarding just the senior
care, one thing I wanted to add was that, so
we have medication management, we have activity.
management in there. Yes, we have that. They
also can put their doctor's appointments, you
know, in there. We have meal reminder. So all
those information resides on senior app. you
know, the caregiver has remote access to it,
because of remote care, they have remote access,
they can update the medication, they can add
a medication or change the time, they have access
to all that remotely. And what it is will be
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
get a notification, they go to their activities,
they see. So if they are independent, they can
follow their own routines and schedule that apps
tells them. But if they need help, then the caregiver
reminds them. So I just want to add that. Excellent.
Well, Said, 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
on the interview and the article itself. Thank
you. Thank you very much. I enjoyed our discussion.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Stay on. Stay
on. I do want to ask you, since, you know, I'm
67 years old, so my group of friends are seniors
and they're all retired and traveling and doing
whatever. How would this work for the senior
who's traveling? Well, I mean, it would work
for the location. Like to let the caregiver know
where they are. Yeah. All the medication schedules
and stuff, it would work still. Yeah. And the
other thing, let's say caregiver, I mean, let's
say senior goes, I mean, New Jersey, it goes
to, let's say, Maryland to see their friend,
you know. the caregiver can change the address,
the home address to the Maryland where they are
there. 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 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. So our apps are available in
US and Canada. OK. All right. I think that'll
be good. And I didn't want to ask you in the
interview, but does this work? Because I know
there are some apps that will work on the phone
and on a smartwatch. Does this work on a smartwatch
as well? So the notification, if you set it up,
it will show up on the smartwatch. That's the
function of the smartwatch. Because when you
go in the smartwatch, you say, okay, which notification
I want to see on my watch. You can select this
app and the notification will show up there.
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. That's good.
I'm going to include that. That's a very good
point. I didn't even think about that. Very good
point. Yes. Because that was complicated to make
sure that the apps are still communicating with
each other, they still work. It doesn't matter
what platform you have. You must have come across
a lot of challenges putting this together, technically,
I mean. Yes. I mean, we started off, because
most of the applications you see in the market,
for example, you see application, gaming application,
or even flight. United Airlines has an app. 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 these applications, we actually had to write
four applications. Two for Android, two for Apple
phone. So one senior, one caregiver for Apple,
and one senior, one caregiver for Android. All
four had to be working together. Oh, my goodness.
Oh, I can't even imagine. There must have been
a lot of sleepless nights. That's all I can think
of. Yeah, it took us a year to come up to actually
design the app and launch it. Wow. How do you
see the app changing in the next year or two
or five? How many changes? How do you see it
changing? How do you see it evolving? So I mean,
one feature that I've been, you know, we've been
talking about including was like a video call.
Okay, I think that's important. You know, for
the caregiver, you know, have a video call to
the app with the senior. The challenge that we
had initially that we didn't include did not
include it was because when you use the video
call, then you're using data. And people have
to, you know, make sure that they have good 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 to senior
that, OK, 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. So you have a video
call. you can be on the call for an hour, don't
worry about it. So that's what we talk about,
simple, right? So simple for the user. So I think
we have figured it out how to do it. So in the
next six months to nine months, we may add that
to the app. And the other thing you mentioned
about the AI, I think, I think that's, to be
honest with you, that's a big phase, the next
phase that we could add it, you know, next year
or so. Thank you for tuning in to this episode
of the Aging in Place Directory podcast. We hope
you found our discussion insightful and helpful.
Remember, aging gracefully and independently
is possible with the right resources and support.
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