The major concern in taking care of our aging loved ones is tracking their health conditions, medications and health care facilities. Changing health conditions and symptoms, diagnosis of their symptoms and providing them with apposite treatments and medicines often confuse caregivers and family members. Make things less complicated with smartphone medical apps for seniors.

Use of smartphones and wearable devices in monitoring health conditions, keeping fit and strong, monitoring sleeping patterns or food intake is trending everywhere. Now with seniors getting comfortable with smartphones and wearable devices, there is also a boom in medical apps. These medical apps facilitate elderly people, their caregivers, family and relatives in various ways –

• Monitor progress and deterioration
• Identify symptoms,
• Check nearby clinics,
• Contact physicians or emergency helpline
• Locate open medicine or medical equipment stores and many more

But not all! One major caution for senior citizens and related people is not all medical alert apps for seniors are worthy of use. Not all medical apps for seniors are compliant with U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards nor they are safe – then how to choose? That’s why we have rounded up 10 best medical apps for seniors meeting diverse health and medical requirements in no specific order.

1.       MedCoach

Remembering to change dosages of multiple medicines is very challenging and confusing. Hence, you need MedCoach app. Available for both Android and iOS-based devices, this medical app for seniors is handy to manage scheduling medication.

Following features will tell how why you need this app –

• Let you schedule medications
• Send reminders when scheduled
• Register medicines taken on time
• Automatic reminders of refill prescriptions
• Connect to the pharmacy
• Detailed information of drugs
• Maintain list of all medications to report to doctor

Ease of use and accurate reminder systems have made MedCoach a top-notch and widely recommended medical app for seniors. 

2.       5Star Medical Alert

5Star Medical Alert Service is chart-topping medical alert system – on both iTunes App Store and Google Play Store. As the name implies, 5Star Medical Alert Service is designed to provide help under any critical situations, anytime and anywhere. 5Star is often called as personal safety app, a medical alert app, emergency care app or ICE tool for its reliable and immediate access to expert Certified Response Agents to save lives. Major features of 25Star Medical Alert are –

• Instant connection to certified, U.S. Based 5Star Agents for day and night
• Brings users’ medical records and conditions to agents
• Tracks users by their GPS location to fetch emergency services
• Allows making conference calls with family, caregivers or friends in 9-1-1
• Allows round-the-clock direct contacts to efficient doctors, health providers and nurse
• Support for more than 100 languages.
• 5Star Urgent Response certified by John Walsh

Start with a FREE 30-day trial with this 5Star Medical Alert app on iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch or Android-based smartphone or tablet and you will never be far from emergency care by health experts, no matter where you are.    

3.       Urgent Care

This medical app for seniors combines dual benefits of instant access to emergency healthcare providers and medical symptom checker tool. Hence, whether you need to look for critical symptoms and consult a certified healthcare expert or doctor with your data – this app will be the one-stop solution for everything you need. Check out its features to understand how it works –

• Live consultation with a registered nurse
• Reach for a certified doctor around the clock through the nurse or the first contact
• Later, doctors diagnose, analyze, advise treatments on the basis of health conditions – all through phone call 
• Doctors can also prescribe medications, when required
• Get to consult with pediatricians via phone 
• Interactive symptom checker tool to monitor symptoms on your own
• Extensive list of symptoms from Medical Encyclopedia and Medical Dictionary
• Support for Spanish translation

The app includes extensive list of symptoms for various diseases such as cold and flu, sinus, urinary tract infection and other feminine symptoms, stomach infections and many more. It works both on iOS and Android platforms.

4.       iTriageHealth

iTriage takes you or your elderly loved ones “at the center of your healthcare” irrespective of your current geo-location. All your health and medical condition related information is brought to your fingertip along with a highly-efficient search tool to find healthcare, doctors and medicines. The app works seamless on both iOS and Android devices and won favor of more than 12 million users already. Why? For these reasons mostly –

• Helps finds it all - right from proprietary symptoms, healthcare facilities, apposite treatment, to healthcare provider
• Covers all registered physicians or doctors using iTriage Doctor Search tool
• Exhaustive database of information related to diseases, medical symptoms, conditions, medications
• Locate the nearby healthcare facilities, emergency rooms and care, hospital, clinics and pharmacies and other health centers you  need to search anytime
• Not only that, get informed of Average Wait times at every Urgent Care and Emergency Rooms
• Get to check in to a hospital while you are on the way to book rooms – from the app
• Set appointments with your doctors
• Direct access to emergency hotlines and help lines
• Store and keep data on doctors, healthcare facilities, symptoms, medications and procedures as well as insurance information at your fingertip
• Any time check out Personal Health Record (PHR) which is backed up at Microsoft HealthVault   

5.       MediSafe

If you are looking for a dedicated medical app for seniors to get reminders and all information related to medications, then MediSafe is the safest bet for you – whether on iPhone, iPad or your Droid. Let us show you why –

• Visual and easy to use
• Get automatic drugs reminders.
• Create medicine box for the senior and other family member
• Even when you or the elder person is sleeping, it will remind you like alarm clock
• Record and sync measurements with HealthKit as per blood glucose, pulse, weight, blood pressure, temperature etc.
• Track progress and share with physicians or nurse in PDF format.
• Offers Rx refill before you are out of stock
• Earn savings with latest coupons and discounts available on medicines
• Share your elder parents’ medication with other family members in real-time.

The MediSafe protects your data on health conditions and medications by automatically storing with its HIPAA compliant MediSafe cloud server.  

6.       Digifit iCardio

Except its one backdrop that it is only accessible to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users with no support for Android, Digifit iCardio is an ideal medical alert system to keep your senior loved one hearty, healthy, fit and happy. To track health and fitness of senior citizen, this app is second to none – for these reasons:

• Pairs with all wearable gadgets and apps including Fitbit, Jawbone UP, Misfit Shine, Apple Health, BodyMedia, MyFitnessPal, Runkeeper, DailyMile and many more. 
• Wireless connectivity via Bluetooth and GPS
• Built-in Pedometer monitors time, distance, speed etc.
• Map routes to help seniors locate during outdoor activity
• Support for voice feedback
• Workout reports and charts
• Share reports via email, Facebook, Twitter, and partner tools  
• Share data with multiple wearable devices 

Digifit iCardio is now compatible to Apple iOS 8 and Apple’s Health App too.

7.       Personal Caregiver

Personal Caregiver app garnered rave reviews from experts and users by providing comprehensive healthcare solutions by its team of ‘Personal Health Assistants’. Starting from medical bills to insurance related problems – this one single app covers it all. Major features of Personal Caregiver app include –

• Loud notification alarms
• Support for unlimited medication lists
• Unlimited reminders
• refill reminders on the basis of current usage and stock
• Reminds of missed dose
• Extensive drug database of more than 17,000
• All drugs including prescription, herbal, and over-the-counter

You can start with the free Personal version before you find it useful enough to upgrade to Premium or Professional versions to be able to use additional features and benefits. It is only available from iTunes App Store.  

8.       iBiomed

If your senior citizen is staying with an assisted living facility, then iBiomed will aid you in sync and share information on the patient between you and the caregiver. iBiomed is an excellent app to store and secure all the journals you need to digitize and share online. The app can be an extensive and organized repository of –

• Medications
• Medicine reminders
• Medicine supply and refill tracker
• Daily journals of symptoms and health conditions 

Additionally, iBiomed medical alert system offers custom evaluation forms and reports in graphs for easy viewing of progresses or deterioration occurred. Caregivers can share data with other caregivers, doctors, nurse and you, right from the app.

9.       Pain Care

Pain Care app is an award-winning healthcare app which won "Project HealthDesign" challenge and awarded by the California HealthCare Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It is available for both iOS and Android devices, it helps –

• Elderly patients and families to track chronic pain
• Monitor symptoms, medications, and side effects of medicines.
• Create and maintain medical journal to detect the cause of ailments and pain

Pain Care is also efficient in fetching you diverse treatment and medication options at your fingertips which you share with your physician online.

10.   Tell My GEO

If you are taking care of an Alzheimer patient at home, then Tell My GEO is what you need. This Android app is recommended for its ease of use and set of helpful features which make easier for families to address issues. This is how it works –

• It needs two Android devices to use the app – one for the patient and the caregiver
• Place an adhesive decal at the back of the phone which you need to track and place another on the rear window of the car of the person.
• Offers automatic updates on location within an interval of 15, 30 or 60 minutes

In addition to tracking patients, Tell My Geo app also provides medication information. It lets you store all the medication information and journal on its website tellmygo.com.

So, which app works the best for you? Share if you are using any medical app for seniors and how it works on Facebook.