SilverBills: A Financial and Legal Tech Tool for Caregivers

Research has demonstrated that education, information and support improve caregiver wellbeing, improve their mental health, and delay the need to move the persons with dementia (PwD) to along-term care setting. Caregivers are often responsible for managing the legal and financial affairs for PwD. This responsibility adds to the stress and strain of caregiving. The SilverBills client-facing application provides an easy to use, efficient financial and legal management tool to caregivers, decreasing caregiver burden. In order to assess the effectiveness of the SilverBills tool, the investigators will measure caregiver burden as well as mental, physical and financial health (baseline and post-intervention). Research Questions: 1. What are the effects of a client-facing application on the primary outcome (caregiver burden) between baseline (T1) and end (T2) of the study? 2. What are the effects of a client-facing application on the secondary outcomes (mental, physical, and financial health) between T1 and T2? 3. What are the moderators of the effects of client-facing application on the primary outcome and secondary outcomes between T1 and T2? To achieve the aims of this proposal, recruited participants will remotely and electronically (via Qualtrics data collection software) provide informed consent for research. Participants will be recruited as detailed in the recruitment and retention plan. Participants will meet the following screening criteria: a) Participants must be caregivers aged 18 or above; b) participants must be caregivers of people with dementia; and c) participants are able to provide consent without the aid of another individual. Participants will complete two surveys at two different time intervals. The first survey will take place at the outset of the research study when the participants are enrolled (T1). The second and final survey will be administered 6 months after the start of the study (T2). The entirety of the data collected throughout this project will be converted into password-protected files (e.g. xlsx), which will be stored in secured electronic platforms (i.e. password-protected OneDrive) that only select team members will have access to. Survey items will be multiple choice and should take respondents no more than 15-20 minutes to complete.