Using Technology to Assist with Caregiving: Caregivers Are Interested

Caregivers are comfortable with technology, albeit with differences across age groups. Across all four technologies about which they were asked, caregivers younger than age 50 are more likely than their older counterparts to say they are extremely or very comfortable with them. Additionally, caregivers 50–64 are more likely than those age 65 or older to note similar high comfort levels with the technologies.

Although they have a high level of comfort with technology, they don't always use it to assist with their caregiving duties. While eight in ten caregivers 18-plus use technology to assist with caregiving at least once per month, many caregivers 50-plus said they never use it in their caregiving role.

Caregivers use their phones and internet to search for support services, food deliveries, and prescription refills, among other items, and use technology and software for making home modifications and keeping track of health and financial records.

Methodology

To better understand the ways in which current and recent caregivers use technologies to help them in their caregiving role, AARP interviewed 1,003 adults age 18 or older currently providing unpaid care for an adult loved one or who had provided care in the last three years. Interviews were conducted by landline, cell phone, and online March 31–April 18, 2022, and May 5–12, 2022. The data are weighted by age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and Census division according to Census Bureau 2020 5-year ACS statistics.

For more information, contact Teresa A. Keenan at tkeenan@aarp.org. For media inquiries, please contact External Relations at media@aarp.org.

Suggested citation:

Keenan, Teresa A. U.S. Caregivers' Use of Technology. Washington, DC: AARP Research, September, 2022. https://doi.org/10.26419/res.00566.001