What is Tusk?
Necessity is the mother of invention. TUSK was born when the founder was suddenly thrust in the role of caregiver. She was providing care to her parents who nearly simultaneously experienced their own unrelated, yet significant health crises. The founder experienced first hand the feeling of being completely overwhelmed, and unsure where to turn for advice, support, recommendations on how to manage the caregiving journey.
Tusk is a software platform that helps caregivers manage the caregiving journey. It is a software tool focused on the health and wellness of the caregiver. It is well-known that if the caregiver is unhealthy, his or her ability to provide effective care to a loved one is diminished.
Caregiver burnout is real, and has only escalated in intensity and frequency resulting from the demands, uncertainty and confusion caused by the pandemic. We have heard repeatedly that navigating the journey is difficult. The ability to access services and resources at the right time is incredibly powerful, and such a source of stress for caregivers who are juggling so many demands on their time.
Tusk can help you do the following:
- Monitor their own well-being
Tusk uses a self-reporting wellness survey to track how you are feeling over the life of your caregiving journey. Caregivers can report their own feelings of wellness as frequently as they choose (daily, weekly etc.) to monitor how they are doing. We know that by measuring something, you monitor it, and having more self-awareness allows a more proactive approach and response. - Monitor the symptoms of their loved one (for people living with dementia)
Understanding where your loved is at on his or her pathway can point you to appropriate resources to help them better understand the dementia pathway, disease and how to cope with it specifically. As the symptoms increase for the person living with dementia, the type and level of care and support will increase over time. The caregiver’s ability to be prepared for those changes depends on the caregiver’s understanding of what is to come. The most common comment we heard from caregivers was “I might be coping today, but what happens next? What can I anticipate?” We hope that by monitoring symptoms, the caregivers have further insight into that question, and be better prepared. - A robust resource library
This can be searched at any time by you, allowing you to access videos, articles, websites, podcasts and more about topics that are relevant to you and your caregiving journey. - An extensive service provider library
We have listed all of the commonly used service providers in the Province of Alberta. Everything from respite care, self-care, transportation, housing, health related needs, home care, legal, financial, and grouped it by area in the Province. It is the most comprehensive database that we have found to aggregate the services that a caregiver may need to extend a loved one’s ability to stay in his or her own home. - Communication with a health care navigator
The platform is in the early stages of developing messaging capability between navigators (ie: social workers) and you the caregiver, to allow for more personalized support.
I have had the pleasure of meeting two of the key partners involved in the creation of this app – and they all have a passion for making lives easier for caregivers. Tusk is an early stage platform and is looking for caregiver users to help them test it out. Could you give it a try? Heather would love to set up a time to do a demonstration so you can see all this app can do. For more information, contact Heather at heather@nimbleelephantnavigation.com
