Top 21 Useful and Easy Apps for Older Adults
November 15, 2024
75% of adults over 65 are Internet enthusiasts, and we should expect this number to keep increasing. As more seniors connect to mobile phones, computers, and wearable devices in this digital age, health monitoring, communication, and entertainment products should enhance their quality of life. Here are 21 top useful apps for seniors that are simple to use and will enable you to live an amazing, independent, and happy life.
Health and Wellness Apps
These are the best apps for older adults, so you might consider them.
1. Fitbit
Price: Free with paid apps
Availability: Android and iOS
Fitbit counts your steps, covers your outdoor activeness, and even shows your sleep pattern and heartbeat rate.. The Fitbit app effortlessly syncs with all the Fitbit fitness trackers, giving you updates for every step and supporting you blindly in completing your fitness tasks. Fitbit’s wide range of features (health monitoring, data collection, and motivation) will be the main factors thet will help you to stay alert and do your exercises.
2. iHealth MyVitals
Price: Free
Availability: Android and iOS
iHealth MyVitals is a digital version of a home wellness centre, in which iHealth devices are just instruments of measurement converted into digital data of such things as BP, blood glucose, and body composition. iHealth MyVitals is among the apps intended for elderly users, with intuitive visuals and the presentation of data plots, which allows users to see how they are progressing (in monthly or yearly terms). It inspires them to not only keep on track with their healthcare but also to share data, if required, with their doctors.
3. Doctor On Demand
Price: Free to download, pay-per-visit if required
Availability: Android and iOS
The Doctor on Demand app for the elderly is the best in its class and will connect you to mediators who are certified doctors, therapists, and psychiatrists who will help you perform virtual visits. You can get medical advice, prescriptions, or psychotherapy sessions using your smartphone. This might sound far-fetched, but you will be highly comfortable at home. The doctors come to you! Instead, you will visit them only if you want to. It is the most convenient and fastest way to cure even a slight health issue.
4. Medisafe
Price: $4.99 monthly subscription, $39.99 for a 1-year subscription.
Availability: Android and iOS
With Medisafe, you get a personal assistant app connected to a fully integrated health manager, which in turn, gives you the power to take control of your health. The app can be used to remind a patient who missed a dose of a medication to take it. Besides that, it also allows you to easily and easily manage and track the daily intake of medicines, vitamins, and supplements even if you have a complicated routine. Should you schedule the alarm, the applications can remind you to take the medicine, to track your medication history, and the last thing, you will be able to prove to the caregivers that you were well-adhering to the prescription.
5. Sleep Monitor
Price: $10 per month, $40 per year.
Availability: Android
Among the many apps for old people, the sleep monitor is the one that is preferred by senior citizens as it records sleep activities, movement, and voice to give a comprehensive view of what the was that night. The app provides you with the meditations of how much you sleep weekly, monthly, and yearly and the possibilities to conclude on how to better your sleep habits. With this app, you can record your targets and what you want to sleep well with every night. Moreover, the app will enable you to figure out your goals, measure your AJDs, and be able to chat with your health service providers if needed.
6. Pocket Physio
Price: Free
Availability: Android and iOS
Pocket Physio is an intuitive tool that provides the necessary exercises for post-surgery or post-injury. Physiotherapists were involved in its creation, and you can use it on your mobile phone, to access simple, step-by-step tutorials on exercises that will help you move better and get stronger.
Cognitive and Brain Games Apps
Moving on to the best apps for elderly, we have:
Words with Friends
Price: Free
Availability: Android and iOS
This is one of the apps for seniors that improves their vocabulary. Play against friends or random people online and see who can create the most words and earn points. This game is a good way to play with words, improve your skills, and stay related to others. A competitive game allows you to boost your vocabulary and even stay connected with your old friends…
Peak
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Availability: Android and iOS
Peak – the app for seniors that makes your brain run at full speed – is a set of short and sweet games to push your brain performance. In these activities, you must remember information, focus your attention, and solve problems. Besides, the exercises in mental muscles and developing of your tolerance skills are squealed. With this smart set of exercises and consistent tracking efficiency, you can successfully isolate a specific skill to learn and improve within seconds of experiencing beginners’ inertia.
Lumosity
Price: $11.99 per month, $59.99 per year
Availability: Android and iOS
If you love challenging your brain with increasingly complex tasks, Lumosity is an application that offers a variety of games that are created for memory and attention training. By taking exercises that match your specific skill level, you can experience both enjoyable and challenging brain workouts that will keep you alert.
Elevate
Price: $7.99 per month, $44.99 per year, 149.99 for lifetime subscription
Availability: Android and iOS
Using Elevate allows you to improve your math, language, and memory skills while being more concentrated. Well-structured programs and demanding tasks, Elevate fit to individual strengths and weaknesses make data each day that are only a few minutes long into a high-quality performance-oriented tool for brain training and mental improvement.
Utility Apps
Next, let’s identify the utility apps for seniors that are top-notch.
1. Life360
Price: Free with in-app purchases ($7.99-$24.99 per month)
Availability: Android and iOS
Life360 is a got-a-family app with the days’ current location, private group messaging, and one’s family’s health notifications for its features. It will maintain the relationship if you are in distant places with the people you love. Definitely, it can be the instrument for family solicitors and helping each other to come together. You may find your relatives’ destinations and set the notifications of such actions, for example, one has reached the airport and you were informed about it, thus you can sit back in peace.
2. Getmobi
Price: Free
Availability: Android
Getmobi is a program through which you can find your phone by clapping your hands. With the sound element you can quickly find even the phone that you have lost or misplaced, easily, and that is why it is one of the favorite apps for the memory-challenged old people.
Navigation and Transportation Apps
These are the best apps for seniors who are more frequently using navigation apps;
1. Google Maps
Price: Free
Availability: Android and iOS
Google Maps is a transportation app that is reliable for real-time GPS, traffic updates, public transit info, and street views. It is a road visa, and besides, the users can find more interesting places, know the way, and the estimated time of arrival. Moreover, it’s one of the few free apps for seniors that is compatible with most mobile phones.
2. Apple Maps
Price: Free
Availability: iOS
This navigation app, which is developed by Apple, sports a real-time traffic update and a city guide paired with 3D graphics. It provides specific direction details allowing you to drive around smoothly, thus, you are sure of clear directions.
3. Waze
Price: Free
Availability: Android
Waze uses real-time information from other drivers on the road to let you know if there are any traffic jams ahead of you, and also show you a better route to avoid them. More to that, you are provided with the most recent updates such as accidents, speed traps, and road hazards to smooth your journey.
4. Uber
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Availability: Android and iOS
Uber allows you to book an efficient and affordable ride; by clicking a button, you can contact nearby drivers. Additionally, the app offers information about various ride options, the driver’s location, and the option of cashless payments.
5. Be My Eyes
Price: Free
Availability: iOS
Be My Eyes not only facilitates your access to communication via 24/7 video calls with volunteers and company representatives but also makes it available to you remotely throughout the world. On the video call, the app enables you to describe the object you see or read the label through the video chat to the person on the other end of the line, hence, making this virtual assistance instant.
6. BlindSquare
Price: $39.99
Availability: iOS
Blind Square is a mobile app by which blind or visually impaired individuals get guided through indoor and outdoor locations using beacons. In order to achieve this, it utilizes GPS and voice guidance features to identify the most important border markers and thus, your movement will be freer in a certain area.
7. Voice Dream Reader
Price: $59.99 per year
Availability: Android and iOS
Voice Dream Reader is a reading app that changes text into audio, thereby allowing users to easily listen to documents, eBooks, and web articles. If you find it difficult to read or are too busy to do so, this app can be of help to you. Beside that, you have the option to listen to the selected text in the best way possible, whether it be through translation or text-to-speech methods.
Recipe and Meal Planning Apps
The elderly are now adopting a better, healthier lifestyle through these apps for easier meal planning.
1. Mealime
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Availability: Android and iOS
Mealime offers personalized recipes that are based on your unique preferences and restrictions, thereby making meal planning faster and easier. You have the ability to list the groceries you need for the week and then you will follow the steps to prepare meals that are very easy for even the family members, therefore, you will help your family to eat healthy, you will do less consumption and you will bring order to the household.
2. Meal Village
Price: Free of charge with in-app purchases.
Availability: iOS
Meal Village It’s the comfort of home with you ready and fast organic meals that you can have delivered. Also, the app gives out choices that in as well as both the customer and seasonal picking it becomes one of the best innovation solutions for quick and ready meals.
Tips on how apps for seniors are chosen.
These are some of the issues to look at when selecting good apps for seniors.
- User-friendly interface: You can go for apps that are easy to use. Do not require complicated interfaces that have unnecessary features.
- Compatibility with Devices: Make sure that it works well on your device no matter if it is a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
- Security and Privacy: Search mostly, for apps with excellent security of your data. Do not use apps that have provocative privacy policies.
- Support and Resources: First, search for the sources of customer support if something unclear happens or questions arise.
- Cost considerations: Drive for apps that will make you just or your pocket either. Install the trial version of any application to know if it works for you.
- User reviews and expert recommendations: Leave the application listing behind and check out what other seniors have panned it. Moreover, be careful to over-rely on your friends and people who celebrated a pleasant experience using an app such as this one.
Conclusion
These functional and user-friendly apps for older people improve the quality of their lives, keep them independent, and help them in health management. As technology is advancing, digital tools will be fundamental resources in the care of the elderly.