How apps are helping seniors age in place with dignity and independence | Canada Voices

Linda and Don Buck, a retired accountant and teacher living in Belleville, Ont., have a synced calendar app filled with all the things you might expect: grocery shopping, weekly dinner plans, medical appointments, home maintenance, laundry and other domestic tasks. Except those calendar entries aren’t for them – they help organize the care needs of Don’s father, Don Sr., a stroke survivor who is determined to age in place.

Don Sr. is 90 and lives alone in an apartment near Linda and Don. He can’t drive anymore because of vision loss and other health issues including his 2019 stroke, but he still gets around, using an electric scooter to attend weekly bridge games at a nearby community centre. He uses his iPad to make calls, watch sports, play games and book accessible transit when he needs it.

Like the 81 per cent of older Canadians who say they want to age at home as long as possible, independence is a non-negotiable for Don Sr.

“It means everything,” he says. “I can just pick up a phone and call people to help me if I need it.”

Linda, who is often on the receiving end of those calls, says she has seen the positive impact of living independently on Don Sr.’s health and wellbeing.

“He does not want to move from his apartment, he’s quite happy there,” she says. “The big ticket for independence for him is making his own decisions.”

But Linda notes that her father-in-law’s lifestyle is not without complications. There’s a rotating roster of personal support workers (PSWs) and community members in Don Sr.’s network who help with everything from medical care to lawn care.

“When you have to hand over care to someone new, the hardest thing is communicating those tiny routines,” Linda says. She says she relies on her Apple calendars and medication reminders in her role as caregiver.

Canada’s population is getting older fast. According to Statistics Canada, more than 8.3 million Canadians are over the age of 65, and the oldest cohort (aged 85 and older) is projected to triple to nearly 2.5 million people by 2046. At the same time, Canadian caregivers are being pushed to their limits – a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence found that 73 per cent reported negative impacts on their wellbeing, including stress, fatigue and burnout.

As Canadian families increasingly turn to tech to help them manage caregiving, a new wave of digital tools is emerging, created to optimize how eldercare is communicated and delivered without compromising independence.

Bridging caregiver communication gaps

One of those apps is MORO, a digital care coordination app that functions as a centralized “user manual” for individuals living with conditions requiring a rotating care team. Families can log a senior’s specific cues, routines and triggers into a shared behavioural dictionary. Instead of relying on a physical binder left on a kitchen counter, relief staff can instantly search a behavioural cue in the app and understand the underlying need.

That focus on bridging communication gaps is part of what inspired Toronto engineer Mohamed Ali to co-found and develop MORO. He originally developed the app to support his nonverbal autistic brother, Marwan, after shadowing him at a day centre.

“I literally saw his care become guesswork, even though we filled out 15 pages of intake forms,” Ali recalls. He realized that paperwork completely failed to capture his brother’s unique daily routines.

While the MORO app began as a tool for the autism community, Ali says caregivers organically began adapting it for aging parents living with dementia or recovering from strokes. Recognizing this overlap, Ali is now expanding MORO’s scope, preparing to launch an official pilot program with a nursing and elderly care centre.

Meanwhile, a device called Idem aims to address a common challenge associated with cognitive decline: time blindness. Designed specifically for people with mild memory loss or early-stage dementia, the Idem Smart Clock helps people who struggle to keep track of hours and days.

The clock shows the date and time with the “moment of the day,” such as “Friday morning,” and is synced with a connected pill dispenser. Idem’s companion app allows remote caregivers to gently push medication reminders, upcoming appointments or digital sticky notes directly to the screen.

Why human connection still matters

AGE-WELL, a national technology and aging network hosted by University Health Network (UHN), serves as a resource and incubator for innovative startups trying to find ways to bridge care gaps, says Michael Chrostowski, chief partnerships officer at AGE-WELL. (Both MORO and Idem were named finalists in the 2026 AGE-WELL National Impact Challenge.)

“We try to nurture them, give them insights from end users and those who could benefit from technology so that it’s more likely to succeed afterwards,” Chrostowski says.

Despite the wave of innovation in the age-tech space, Chrostowski says developers who want to bring these digital tools to market face a steep learning curve in understanding what the aging population actually wants to interact with.

“I want to convey to developers and innovators [the] need for engagement and co-creation with who they’re trying to serve, because there are a lot of assumptions that are made about not just what people can use [but] what they’re comfortable using,” Chrostowski says.

One major misconception is that seniors are willing to trade their privacy for safety, he notes. Adoption can also be stymied by something as simple as marketing an app or device as tech for “old people,” Chrostowski says. These labels can make people ashamed of using or needing them.

He adds that with any technology developed to aid caregiving, the goal should not be to replace the human element.

“It’s for [older people] to have that autonomy, but also to allow those caring for them and supporting them to be able to give them… that direct connection with them, because human connection is definitely at the core of what brings us joy as humans,” he says.