Helping the helpers: How Trualta keeps families together

Introduction

This fall, we asked 62 caregivers to complete a survey during their first login after registration.
The caregivers were asked about their interests, confidence, living situation, and wellness. However, at Trualta, we recognize that behind these survey responses, there are real caregivers with real stories! So, we also took the time to sit down and speak (virtually) with some of these caregivers to make sure we understand their experience and continue to meet their needs. 

Using the feedback we gained by analyzing these survey findings and our conversations with caregivers, we’re making updates to our platform design, increasing personalization features, and addressing gaps in knowledge to inform our content production priorities. 

In this article, we’ll summarize key findings related to caregivers’ perspectives on nursing homes and long term care facilities and how Trualta has helped them keep their loved ones at home.

Nursing Homes and Long Term Care Facilities 

Making the decision to move a loved one into a nursing home or long term care facility is a tough decision that has been made more difficult by the global pandemic. We wanted to dig deeper and understand how the pandemic has impacted families’ thoughts and desires to keep their loved ones at home. We found that:

• More than half of the caregivers reported they believe they will be able to continue providing care for their loved one in their current living situation for more than 2 years.
• When asked how likely they are to move their loved one into a nursing home or other long-term care facility in the next year, 41% of caregivers reported “definitely not likely”.
• The most frequently reported reason for why a caregiver would consider moving their loved one into a nursing home or long term care facility is if their loved one’s behaviors became unmanageable.

Throughout the survey, caregivers’ responses continued to convey that these concerns are top of mind for them. For example, when prompted to select two skills they would like to improve, the top skills selected included:

Caregivers’ Perspectives:

We spoke to several of these caregivers to get a more in-depth understanding of how they feel about their loved one’s behaviors and their ability to manage them:

Caregivers have told us that they often spend a lot of time looking for credible sources of information, and have found that they really benefit from having everything in one place with Trualta. For example, before registering with Trualta, Nancy would spend hours researching her loved one’s behaviors online. Another caregiver, Hannah, also told us she did this but eventually found that Trualta gave her more in-depth insights than any other website or resource she had used. Other caregivers we spoke to echoed this sentiment and shared several other benefits they have gotten from using Trualta. As he went through each lesson, Thomas found comfort in realizing his wife’s behaviors are normal and common for the stage she is at. Even Sandra, a highly experienced healthcare professional who is now caring for her sibling, found Trualta’s 10-minute lessons to be convenient, informative, and valuable. She specifically liked the convenience of having the option to listen to content instead of reading it.

We know that keeping loved ones safe and at home is a top priority for our caregivers. That’s why we’re focused on providing caregivers with the skills and resources they need to feel confident responding to their loved one’s behaviors and adapting as their condition changes.

To learn more about how Trualta prepares family caregivers, contact Leda Rosenthal, Director of Growth, at Leda@Trualta.com or 1-800-214-5085 ext 1.