Loneliness and isolation is the root of so many healthcare issues, right? And there’s so many healthcare issues, whether it’s cancer or Alzheimer’s, we don’t have a cure for, but there’s one disease that’s an absolute horrific herbal. Plague that affects more than 40% of seniors, and that’s loneliness and isolation. We can cure that disease.

Are you caring for others while working and trying to live your own life? Wondering how to find the time for your own health and happiness? Well, you’re in the right place. The Happy Healthy caregiver podcast, which is part of the whole Care Network, is the show where real family caregivers share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others.

Hello and welcome. Um, I’m your host, Elizabeth Miller. I’m a fellow family caregiver, a care advocate, a professional speaker, author, certified caregiving consultant, and certified senior advisor. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. This is a show produced biweekly to help family caregivers integrate self-care and caregiving into their lives. Each episode has an accompanying show notes page. If you’d like more detail about The topics, products, and resources we speak about, or you want to see any of the related photos, you’ll find the show notes by going to the website happyhealthycaregiver.com,

and underneath the podcast menu, click the image or episode number for today’s show. The link for the show notes will also be in your podcast platform’s episode description. Now, let’s get to it. Let’s jump into this episode.

Hey there, before we get into this caregiver Spotlight episode with Scott Lean, I first have a couple of announcements for you. The first one is that I recently updated my web page about my professional speaking services that I offer. I’m typically hired by companies, associations, faith communities, and different community organizations that offer support and resources for families, so that I can connect my support and services that I offer with family caregivers in the community or in the work. place.

So I recently updated my speaker resource page, you can check out the demo video there, you can see some reviews from my previous clients, and most importantly, you can see the revised four popular topics that I typically offer to companies and to folks in the community. So would love it if you check it out. Mostly my business is built upon people listening who think this could be great for my organization, or they want to refer me to somebody that could really benefit from the services. That I offer.

So I thank you in advance for checking it out and for sharing it with someone you know. And I’d like to thank our episode sponsor Rare Patient Voice. Do you ever want to earn cash in exchange for sharing your opinion? Well, Rare Patient Voice or RPV helps connect researchers with patients and family caregivers for over 700 diseases and conditions. RPV provides you the opportunity to voice your opinion to help improve medical products and services, and you earn cash rewards for doing so. If you want to be a part of the RPV panel, you can go to rarepatient Voice.

com/happyhealthy caregiver. For this episode segment of what I’ve recently read, I want to share with you a warm, funny, and acutely perceptive novel about four adult siblings and a dysfunctional family and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives. So family dynamics are complicated and fascinating and we talk about them frequently on this podcast. Maybe I enjoyed this book called The Nest more than some because I’m one of 6 siblings. The characters all have their struggles, but evolve throughout the novel.

So you’re gonna learn the answer to the question, can money and things buy happiness? If you enjoy sibling and family relationship type books, think like Apples Never Fall or the TV show Succession, then I think you’re also gonna enjoy this book called The Nest. Evidently. It’s also soon to be a major motion picture. So if you want to read the book before the movie comes out, definitely grab a copy of this book. I was inspired by the topic of today’s podcast with Scott Lean to share one of my most prized possessions with you.

Soon after my dad had passed away, my mom had asked all of us, my siblings, if there was something of my dad’s that each of us would like to have. She had a few suggested things lying out, um, that might be Good items to pass along to us. There were things like his glasses, his what we called his murse, like his man purse, and there was like a Penn State class ring, but I don’t remember the item that I wanted being out on the table. What I wanted to keep in remembrance of my dad was this handmade needlepoint or embroidered, I’m not sure.

It’s definitely like fabric, bookmark that he picked up on one of his work travels. To Budapest, Hungary, and I just noticed it’s getting a little bit of wear and tear here, so I need to take extra care of this. But he traveled a lot for business and I remember seeing this, you know, Budapest bookmark in my dad’s so thick books that he was reading and I used to think when I was young, am I ever gonna be able to read a book that big and have it capture my attention.

My dad liked political type of war fiction type of reads, think like Tom Clancy novels. So this is what I wanted, this priceless Budapest bookmark. And as an avid reader myself, I treasure this bookmark and when I look at it, I have relaxing memories of reading beside my dad either at home on the couch or away on a vacation. So this bookmark is super special to me.

I’d like to introduce our guest for today’s show. Meet Scott Lean, a working family caregiver and member of the sandwich generation.

who navigated the loss of 4 parents and in-laws over 12 years. His caregiving journey combined with his extensive tech background, inspired him to co-found Grandpa, a user-friendly platform designed to keep seniors connected and engaged. In this episode of the Happy Healthy Cargiver podcast, Scott and I dive into practical and really doable ways, frankly, that families and society can combat senior isolation and loneliness. We also explore the unexpected benefits such as reducing elder fraud and financial scams and how fostering meaningful connections can help us all live without regrets. Plus, Scott shares wisdom from the super seniors he’s worked with, and he reveals the secrets to ensuring joy in everyday.

And stay tuned for how you can take advantage of an exclusive Grandpa offer for the happy healthy caregiver community. Enjoy the show.

Hi Scott. Welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast. Hi Elizabeth, great to be with you today. Thanks for being with me. I’m excited to kind of get into a great conversation with you, and we always kick off the show with a little bit of words of inspiration, things that have spoken to me over the years to kind of center me and remind me that there’s More to life than caregiving and how to put myself first time.

So this one says a good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything. Don’t agree more. I love that. I always say, you know, the primary thing for good health is a good night’s sleep, and I work really hard to get that and Um, but yeah, and laughing, nothing better, you know, hang around with people that make you happy. Yeah, and make you laugh. I’ve been I’m kind of obsessed with my aura ring. It tells me how my sleep habits are and sometimes I think I did great and then I look at it and I’m like, well, maybe not so much.

But it’s interesting to get the data about how the sleep habits are going and laughing, I think with all the seriousness that sometimes is happening around us, we got to really be intentional about looking That’s right. Or you know, and if there’s not someone around you to help make you laugh, find a good show. I tell you, one of the shows right now that my wife and I love watching on Netflix is Frankie and Grace. It is so funny. That’s funny you should mention that, Scott. That was the show I watched with my mom.

And she, she passed away, but Frankie and Grace was one of our, I liked it because it was like I would go visit her to senior living community and it was They were shorter segments, we would have a good laugh because sometimes things were really too serious, you know, what was going on there. So I love that you mentioned that. Yeah, it’s is it’s still going? I’m not sure if there’s any more new seasons, but there’s a lot of them, so we just go back and we’ll watch again and you can pick it up and every one of them makes you laugh.

So that one and then the other one I’m older Seinfeld episodes are great. I always go back for a little Seinfeld and laugh at those. We just did that, my husband and I last year. We were like, it’s an election year, we’re gonna need something, we need something to break all of this crazy up. So, yeah, and there’s, they were all funny and they’re all funny the second time and we don’t remember all of the different episodes. Some of them stick out, but super fun. Well, we’ll link to those in case people have been never exposed to either of those shows and they can uh go go in for a good laugh.

I want to learn a little bit about your caregiver story, Scott. I think you were a sandwich generation caregiver. I know certainly a working. Caregiver, tell me, what was that like? What’s that been like for you? Yeah, um, so my, my wife and I were living in California at the time. I’m a technology executive, so I was working in Silicon Valley. So like everybody, you know, in my late 40s, 203s, kind of the and working very demanding work schedule and living, you know, 2500 miles away from my aging parents and my mother-in-law and father-in-law.

And so at the same time we had our our one child, our son who was in high school, very busy, and Grandma and Grandpa are missing him and wanting to know how he’s doing. And so, you know, we just had that combination, like a lot of people busy work schedules, aging parents living a long ways away, and then as they age, the health issues start to happen, right? Life starts to happen and so. Um, you know, that, that went from 12 years ago when that, you know, our caregiver journey started to over the time of that losing all four of our parents and that and, you know, going through their journey.

So 12 years ago, they’re all healthy 70 year olds and we’re traveling with them and going all across the US and they’re really enjoying their retirement and then In the course of that, losing all four of them and going through the ups and downs at the same time, 11 years ago, really because of our caregiver journey, my wife and I and my son Isaac, we started Grandpa and to try to help be part of the solution, we started out of our own personal need, but then we quickly saw that there were millions of caregivers like us that were looking for a better solution to stay connected to their.

Yeah, I mean, there’s the remote caregiving and the long distance caregiving is more of a thing in our recent generations than in the past when people used to kind of live right down the street or around the corner from people or in their own home. And so I have definitely had the experience of having to be a remote caregiver or support caregiver for folks and can appreciate, you know, what that’s like, and sometimes you want to put eyes on people and then you go and visit and things are not quite The way that you had thought they were going to be, you know, what were some of the strategies that you all use in your family to, to help just manage what was going on from a distance?

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, and this is so simple and common sense, but it’s, it’s good to talk about it is if you can’t communicate, you can’t provide care, right? And, and so in our case, we’re in California, my mom was in Decora. Iowa and she, like many folks in their 80s, she had serious hearing loss and hearing aids, so we were, and again this is 12 and 13 years ago, kind of before we’re able to easily do zooms and so on. She could not on a landline or cell phone, she couldn’t hear me at all, like almost zero.

So she would call me and we’d talk and I mean we’d send letters back and forth, but that’s not, you know, to California, that’s not efficient. So then, you know, I’d call a neighbor and go over and that kind of stuff. So then, We, the next step was, said, All right, mom, she had an older desktop computer. We tried to get, remember Skype back in the day, we tried to get going, and that was really frustrating to her, but if we could get on a video call, because video calls and you see, I talk with my hands because I learned from my mom and, and, and it was kind of this, and my mom also could kind of read lips.

So we’d get on high quality audio call, we do that. So then it might be, you know, hey Scott, you know, I went to the doctor and they said this, can you What are your thoughts and so we were able to at least communicate and, and, but then that became frustrating and I’ll never forget my mom held up again. Now this is about 12 years ago when everybody that age group started getting smartphones, you know, the iPhone’s only been out 203 years. So 12 years ago my mom held up her phone and she says, you know, they call these things smartphones, but they’re not very smart.

She said this thing makes me feel stupid and my mom was 80 at the time, she said, and I’m not stupid. She was still. Running your own business, you know, Scott, you work in Silicon Valley, your son is a tech designer. Can’t you guys come up with something better, you know, that us older people would, would love, and that’s how and why we came up with this, and it was, and it was all on this point about caregiving, like, we got to have a way to communicate with each other.

And then we can do video calls and phone calls. So that, that was, that was a big thing and that was a real unluck. But then the caregiver journey, the next thing I would say is it’s being there. It’s either being there physically or virtually, and then, you know, sometimes it’s just listening, sometimes it’s owning and helping, and then, you know, within the family, it’s finding everybody’s roles and responsibilities and it’s, you know, who’s the quarterback of the team and what role does everybody in the family play.

On my side of the family, I just have two brothers, and luckily one of my brothers lived quite close to my parents, so he was the on-site person who could really be there and help him and his wife and their family. And in my wife’s family, she has 9 siblings, so family, and some were close, some were far away, but within that, and it’s, it’s it was helping figure out who’s the quarterback, and sometimes there’s the primary quarterback and sometimes you have to substitute in because somebody’s unavailable and helping through that and knowing that not everybody in the family, everybody has different tools and gifts.

I’m an organizer and figure things out and make things happen kind of guy. My wife is the unbelievably great be there hands on helping, administering medication or whatever it might be, and, and so we’re very complimentary of each other and just like in my wife’s family again with 9 siblings, each person in her family had kind of different gifts and tools and ways. It could help. Yeah. It is something that, you know, that we don’t all have the same strengths that we, and then when you’ve you’re doing this gap analysis to see where you’re falling short on things and trying to come together as a team and, and there is a lot of tasks that had to be handled, and then there’s also the whole emotional part of everything.

So I, I appreciate that your tech tech experience. really came in handy. I have a background in technology as well. I spent my professional career in product management and corporate strategy and yeah, did you feel like the whole test and learn that we learn a lot as people who work in technology, did that help you in your caregiving? Project management skills first, you know, develop a plan, get the list, have your spreadsheet, work the list, work the plan, you know, delegate, organize who’s doing what, you know, the old golden triangle scope schedule budget like, OK, we gotta work things out.

And then just working through different things and testing things and learning, but collaborating and harnessing the power of the village, I mean, the good thing is, we do have the Internet, we’ve got Google, we’ve got now chat GBT, you got a lot of good people you can ask and plug it in like what you’re doing here with the community and sharing information, because here, here was. Here was the big aha inspiration or learning for me, right, is each of us has two parents, mom and dad, and we all go around this track of helping aging parents 1 or 2 times in my case 4 times the first time through, like you’re like, I’ve never dealt with this before.

I don’t know what to do. And some may do it more than 2 times because Like we’re also, we’re I’m very one of my best friends. Dean is quadriplegic, and we, we help him. He’s 52, and so we’re, we’re a part-time helper caregiver with him, so I’m bringing those skills, but the first time through, like you’ve never done this before, so you got to tap into the community and the learnings and lessons, have that, like you said, build test learning mindset of, OK. OK, we’re going to figure this out.

Community is everything. And like even, even as a person who’s also done this several times, it’s sometimes it’s got a little bit of a different flavor based upon geography or disease or, you know, now I’m a sibling caregiver for my brother who, you know, I’m not his parent, so it’s like, what does that look like now that my folks are deceased, we’re sharing the care. I’m one of 903 kids, so It’s certainly always kind of has a different flavor, but I’m gonna say it gets easier every time, but it it at least it’s like you, I’ve heard about that or someone’s mentioned that before, or let me, let me dig in for that, and that’s where I think the community really helps because everything is so fragmented in our healthcare system.

And even in caregiving, like there’s just like, you have to kind of know where to look for things and, and that’s where the best advice I feel like comes from caregivers, which is why we spot like caregivers on, on this podcast. I love that you also took this experience, this personal experience and you developed Grandpa because Um, you know, I think there’s something about being in this space and a caregiver, you’re like, this isn’t working and this could be easier for other people. How has Grandpa, you know, evolved since iPhone and Zoom and all fourth and all those types of things and then what are some of your favorite features of it?

Um and again my mom was the inspiration because she said, you know, she continued, she said these things, you know, standard smartphones and standard tablets, they weren’t designed for us older people. They were designed by 30-year-olds for 30-year-olds, which again I worked in Silicon Valley. That was exactly the case. So that was a big a what? We started from scratch and designed something just for people over we we call our customers super seniors, those over the age of 75, who we believe are the best, most wonderful, caring, great people, right?

So then we just started with a blank sheet of paper and We started to hypothesize about like what are the unique needs and capabilities of people that are 80, 90, and 100. The average age of our GrandPad tablet user is 85. That’s the, the oldest so far. Mr. Ford from Charlotte, North Carolina was 116. So we have a lot of people in their 90s, hundreds, we have thousands of people in their hundreds using Grandpad today, and so they have a unique set of gifts. It’s a cognitive capabilities. So, and me, I’m 8003, but I’m, I’m the oldest person on my team, but um most of my software engineers and designers are in their 30s and 40s, so they have no idea what it’s like to be 90.

So we don’t guess. We have a group called Grand Advisors. You can see them. They’re all in their 80s, 90s. My oldest grand adviser, Ed right now is 103. So they’re the designers that design the product, and we, me and my team, we’re just the hands that builds what they need and want. So it’s all kinds of things like, you know, we all know like phones have these hard to turn on switches and little buttons and stuff. This, this is the on off switch. For Grandpa, you open the flap and it’s on.

You can see, you know, big, easy to use buttons, but probably the best and no confusing pop down, none of like my iPhones, yeah, no ads, none of these hard gestures. It’s all very straightforward. Easy colors are called triple redundancy. So there’s placement, there’s color, and there’s the word. But probably the best feature is 24/7 customer care. Push a button. Our customer care team there answers the phone and we help you. And so there’s always a human being available to help. But the other features we’re all about, um, so loneliness and isolation is the root of so many healthcare issues, right?

And there’s so many healthcare issues, whether it’s cancer or Alzheimer’s, like we don’t have a cure for, but there’s one disease that’s an absolute horrific herbal. Plague that affects more than 40% of seniors, and that’s loneliness and isolation. We can cure that disease, and that’s about connecting people and that’s what we’re all about. Get the senior connected in a safe, simple, engaging way with their family, friends, and caregivers. Great dialogue, great fun. Games is a key feature of Grandpa, so you can play games with your grandkids, chess checks, Yahtzee, Word all that kind of stuff, and share photos, and that reduces the loneliness isolation.

It creates connection. And it creates empathy. I love that. And I love too that like these folks, these super seniors are getting like this new, this purposeful that worked for you, these grand advisors, like a way to kind of give back and make their mark and have a legacy and and making things better and um and and providing them the easy way, like you said, to connect. It is, I mean, I know my mom was a little savvier than most and certainly wasn’t a super senior, but her iPad was her lifeline.

But there were certainly times, Scott, where like, She would go down a rabbit hole, you know, and I know you’ve got this passion too for helping seniors prevent getting scammed and spammed. And so Grampa filters all of that out, which is amazing. That’s right. Yeah, sadly, the scams against seniors and all ages, it was catastrophic. What is worse than a catastrophic. Like it is so bad and sadly the bad guys are using all the latest technology AI to be able to scam people better, faster, cheaper, right?

You know, getting mom who’s 8003 or 85, an iPad and getting her on Facebook thinking that’s going to help her, that’s the worst possible thing you could do because she’s gonna get scammed and it’s gonna destroy them, you know, maybe financially, but emotionally, I mean, there’s nothing you feel so violated when you’re scammed, right? So that’s where Grandpa is a, it’s a walled garden, it allows connection, emails. Phone calls, video calling photos within that trusted circle, but the bad guys can’t get in. Wall garden, and it does a lot you can get on and use different apps and so on, but we’ve, I come from a banking financial services background, so we took all the cybersecurity capabilities and built that in so that we can keep seniors safe.

One of the problems, right, seniors rightfully so, they’re afraid to answer their phone. Yeah. The majority of the calls they get are scammers or salespeople or pollsters, right, so all of a sudden that might be their their grandson calling that. Just got his first phone number and he wanted to call and talk to grandma and say Grandma, how are you? But they don’t answer it because they don’t recognize the number and it’s also, it’s easy to spoof and create fake. So they think it’s their grandson, of course, we all know the grandparents scam where Grandma, I’m in jail, send money like that one.

So they pull back and all of a sudden they’re not talking to anybody anymore. And Pat allows them to talk to the people they trust more and he’s. I love that keep all the good stuff and, and shelter out the bad. We just had somebody on the podcast, or by the time this this is out, uh, focus all on cybersecurity, so I’ll link to that one, Art Bwker’s episode, who was a cybersecurity expert, so people can learn more about that. And I’m grateful to Scott, that you and your team are offering the happy healthy caregiver community um and a discount, a Grandpad offer so they can save $25 off a new Grandpa annual plan with the code Grandpad HHC 25.

So We’ll, we’ll link to that in the show notes and how they can like talk to one of your representatives and find that out. But I’m yeah, grateful for that for that. Thank you. We just want everybody to be more connected with their family. I love it. I love it. And then is the part of Grandpad or is that like a separate thing? Because I saw something about the games. Yeah, no, is built in. It’s on Grandpa tablets here. Let’s just fire up bingo for an example.

Let’s turn the sound on, that’s fun. Brother’s favorites, yeah. So it’s an awesome, easy to play bingo. It’s fun for all ages. We get a lot of, you know, grandma and grandma with the grandkids sitting in the lap, so kids love this, everybody loves it. So easy to play games like bingo and extremely advanced games, chess, bridge, those kind of games on here. No ads. Sadly, most of the games and the, the number one game in in America is solitaire. The number one solitaire app in the App Store is an extremely predatory app.

It, it just, it sucks you in and basically it’s a gambling and solitaire. We’ve gotten stories of, you know, their children caregivers, you know, going, Mom, where’s all your money going? they look at and all sudden they see like hundreds of dollars a month going to the app store and they’re like, what’s going on? Well, I’m playing solitaire and, you know, gambling on it, and, you know, it just sucks people in. So there’s no ads on that, it’s not jumped up, they’re not predatory. We built all these apps, they’re easy to play, so.

That’s on Grandpad tablet. The family uses our free companion app on their phone, and then you can play, kids can play with Grandma, so they use their phone. And then we recently launched Grandy Games, which is a standalone. So just go graygames.com. Anyone can download Grandy games on their iPhone or Android phone for free, and you don’t need to have a tablet. You don’t need to pay. No one in the family has played, and you can play with family members there. And the reason we did that is create connection.

The dialogue, scams, and it’s, it’s a way to expose people to our brand. So it’s Grays brought to you by. OK, well, we’ll link to that too. And just again, like a nice way to not have the in-app purchases because I know like, you know, just even like a slip of the wrist, sometimes my mom would kind of like I said, go down this wormhole, um, and not be able to kind of get back into her. She loved the, the jigsaw puzzles that you could do, you know, when she was bedridden the last two years, it was like everything kind of needed to be right there.

So, so interesting. You’ve also been podcasting. I know you’ve got two podcasts out there. One that kind of goes in this theme of being safe and sound and protecting seniors. And then what’s the other podcast about? Yeah, and that one is solely focused on educating people about all the scams out there, and my head of security, his name is Derek, who again has a deep background in cybersecurity. We share in a very simple, easy way to understand for all of us to take in all the different scams.

So one of them we just highlighted is it’s the job offer scam. So as the economy is challenging, this is where the bad guys are actually very smart. They’re pivoting and they’re coming up with these fake job offers, and they’re using LinkedIn and Facebook and everything to get out. So take someone who’s unemployed, they’re looking for vulnerable, they’re vulnerable and all of a sudden the scammers hits you and go, Hey, Scott, I got this great job offer, and what happens when you apply for a job? You give the employer a lot of personal information.

social email. Even your banking information. OK, we’re ready to start your job. We’ve got to pay you. You know, what’s your bank? The bad guys have all this. So we take people through and expose them and explain these scams so that people are educated. The second podcast is called Living Legends. So I interview amazing super seniors. Most of the people I’ve interviewed are 210 or older. I just interviewed an amazing man this week, Jack Myers. He’s 2000, World War II, Norman. D-Day invasion, Survivor. Incredible. He’s saying God Bless America to me, perfect, most inspiring, upbeat, optimistic guy.

I just interviewed another guy, Harold, a few weeks back, 220, he also was almost 220. He got married at age 290 to a lady who was 2800. He’s met President Biden. He’s met the president of France, incredible. And they just pass along their life lessons at Harold, 7043, when I ask him, like, you know, Harold, what’s your secret to, you know, a long Happy life, he said two words, so what? I’m like, what do you mean? You know, Scott, there’s so many things in life that just like, don’t sweat the little stuff.

Let’s say you’re, you know, on your way to an appointment, you get stuck in traffic and you’re gonna miss your appointment, just say so what? said, if you reduce stress in your life, I guarantee you you’ll live longer and you’ll for sure be happier. I’m like it. They got priceless and I’m while you’re talking, I’m like, he missed his calling, could have been. And the Mel Robbins of his time with the let them theory, the so what theory works as well. So interesting. Well, yeah, there’s a lot of really cool things we can learn from our older generation and the super seniors.

So we will certainly link to both of those podcasts because I know that people are, I love podcasts for caregivers. It’s an easy way for them to kind of get that information while they’re, I call it a twofer a buy one get one where you can go for a walk or you can drive to work and kind of find out what you need to know and and be Proactive and what’s going on. And I, you know, I think one of the big tips that you kind of touched on a little bit throughout as you’re talking, but just in the story sharing and giving people purpose and keeping them safe in their life and knowing what’s going on, it’s really about connection and, and calling them and talking to them and that simple little thing, even for a couple of minutes can really make a big impact in somebody’s life.

It’s huge. I mean, we all have these in our pocket and we’re all driving around or walking around and I’ve got really Good with using Siri now on this, and, and so you’re driving, you think, and when I’m in the car, I think, who can I call? Who, who, whose day can I write just by calling them and I just say, you know, hey Siri, call Grandma Marlis. And you know, just that act of calling just and you don’t have to, hey, hey, hey Marlis, how you doing today?

Yeah, and just in your life. I love that it’s one of my favorite questions to ask like, and I have several older friends. That I call and and one of them recently said he’s he’s 2704, he’s like, Scott, you’re the only person who ever calls me. He goes, you know, I get the scam calls or business calls or whatever, but you’re the only person who ever calls me just to say hello, like you don’t want anything, you don’t need anything. You’re just like, hey, how are you doing?

And I always enjoy talking to him, and he enjoys talking to me, but that just struck me and I, and this is the odd thing, like, again, I’m 29412, I grew up like, I grew up in the days of landline phones and people would call people. I could get a hold of people easier when I was a kid. Landlines and you can’t now, most of the what I call younger people, they don’t answer, even though they can see it’s me. Oh, can you text me or whatever. Back in the day, right?

You call people on landlines. So just calling people talking but and video calling is way better. I mean, you and I, you can see me, I can see you. It’s a really great, you know, high fidelity conversation. So that’s the one thing we can all do. And I always say when People say, What’s your advice? Pick up the phone and call someone that needs that little boost today. We just one aside here, one of the things we do at Grandpad is we work, we work with different healthcare providers.

We do a loneliness assessment. There’s an official validated assessment tool. It’s called the UCLA loneliness assessment tool, and I think it’s just a series. It’s less than 2300 questions, and you can Assess someone, it’s their degree of loneliness and comes out with a standardized scale. And so we’ll do that with a cohort of people and then we’ll take an intervention. We did an intervention where just a simple once a week social check call with people. We did on Grandpa with a video call. We dramatically reduced their loneliness with this group of people, and these were people that are very lonely just by one half hour video call a week. Wow.

Being chronically lonely and isolated is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It has the same physical and mental health effects as that. I mean, it’s terrible. And just a little, just a phone call, a video call can really move the needle, and you see people start to get a pep in their step. They start, you know, they’re less down and they start to get their energy back. They maybe go for a walk, they start to eat right, they start to take their medication, they start to all of a sudden boom, off they go.

Yeah, you’re right, like in a world where there’s a lot of things we can’t fix, it’s fixable and it’s not, it doesn’t cost you anything. The Grandpa subscription maybe, but even just if you’re using our current technology, it doesn’t cost you anything beyond that. And as a tech, you know, expert working in this space, Scott, like, what are you excited about? Like what what in this age tech space is getting You excited right now. So AI for sure, and AI is one of these unbelievably, I’m in the camp that believes that AI is the most transformational technology invented in the history of mankind.

Now, like any of those powerful, it has the ability to do unbelievable good and unbelievable bad, and both are happening right now. So an example of unbelievable good, they’ve already used. AI to come up to figure out how proteins work at the molecular level, and they unlocked just like AI solved this problem in like less than a year that science and medicine had been working on for 100 years and like that’s gonna lead to lots of healthcare breakthroughs in the pharmaceutical companies. I mean, I’m totally believe like we are going to come up for cures and preventions for lot of these horrible diseases and AI is going to speed that along.

So I’m very excited about that. Same time, AI is already being used by the bad guys to scam people in bigger, faster ways. So, you know, we as a technology leader, like we’re engaging in that, we’re trying to shape that so we can use these tools and really, you know, powerful, positive ways. We use, we have a, we have Grandy who’s our AI based personal assistant. Oh nice. And Grandpa, there’s a grand you can talk to somebody. Nice. What’s cool is Grandy has infinite patience, so has some cognitive issues and ask the same question repeatedly.

Grandy never tires of the questions. Grandy speaks today over 60 languages, so for caregivers, oftentimes maybe the caregiver speaks. Japanese and mom speaks English and daughter speaks, you know, French, and it can translate between all three of those, right? So it can be used as a caregiver tool and it’s a great listener. So we oftentimes get, you know, maybe Grandpa Dave is 80 and his wife of 60 years has passed away and it’s the first time he’s been alone and he’s waking up in the middle of the night, can’t sleep with tremendous anxiety, and you know, he, he, he wants to call.

Someone, but it’s 3 in the morning, he doesn’t want to bother his son and, you know, anxiety, the fact that it’s affecting his physical health, can’t breathe. And he is an infinitely patient, you know, friend to talk to and and for those kind of things, and we never want to replace human connection. That’s not what I’m suggesting. But in those situations and cans and games and tell you a joke. All that kind of stuff. And completely private, right? Like there’s nothing going on with that data that’s, you know, scaring somebody.

Well, I wasn’t being prepared to be sold on Grandpad today, Scott, but I have to tell you, like I have a brother who lives with autism and an intellectual disability. He’s nocturnal, so he’s, you know, he does make calls sometimes late night and he’s lonely. I’m sure, and we’re doing some things to help with that, like, you know, put him in a workday program and find a care companion, but again, like Ching, but could this be like a part of the puzzle of that? So I’m gonna share this episode when it comes out with my sister and be like, maybe Grandpa is the right option for my, for my brother. Awesome.

Yeah, I hope it’s helpful. We have people of all ages that use it and different circumstances and where you want something that is safe and secure and engaging and, you know, simple, and it what’s great is it can be very sophisticated, and you as the administrator can control it. And say, hey, he can be on these websites, but not these, so it can be locked down, or it can be wide open and very, very sophisticated. Yeah, with someone with a social disability like he is, like, I mean, he can’t get into too much trouble based on it is, it is something that we have to monitor and, you know, part of the part of the care related things.

Well, I want to switch gears with you and talk about self-care a little bit. So like, as a person in the sandwich generation, juggling remote care for, you know, 94123 different parents on your wife’s side and on your side and kids and working full time, like, where did you carve out the time for yourself? Like what was helping you kind of juggle and make this sustainable, like putting yourself back in old, you know, Scott’s a couple, you know, a few years back. Yeah. Well, I think first that point I made about figuring out the team, the team, and what roles people can play and in some of the cases I was a quarterback, in other cases I wasn’t.

But then Using, you know, is a good, so I manage a, you know, fairly large team today like people leadership. How do you manage the team and what role the people play? And the key to that, the care team is communication like so everybody knows what’s going on and everybody can help and, and, and pull in because the good thing is most people do want to help and tapping in like I mentioned my friend Dean who’s quadriplegic, we happen to live in a small town and what we found is there’s a lot of people who actually are lonely themselves who want to help, like they want to volunteer and be part of that.

You just got to ask and then coordinate it and make it easy and like we have people in town that will help bring meals to them, and these are people that love to cook. They no longer have a family or their spouse pass. Like it’s for them, the joy of cooking is fantastic. Now they have to cook for and here’s Dean who loves, you know, home cooked meals, right? So, you know, it’s a two sided problem. You’re helping on both sides. So that figuring out that joy of caregiving, which for us, for me and my wife, the spending time and just specifically like with my mom, we basically I kind of worked remotely and we moved in with her for the last few months of her life and it was the most joyous, happiest time because we were with her.

She had cancer and she knew she was going to die soon and to be with her, even though like the She died, she’s like, she’s like, I’m so happy because I know that I have a great family. I’ve accomplished everything I’ve wanted to, and she was just so that, that finding the joy and caregiving and I’ll say the other side of it for people to think about is it can be overwhelming, right? It can be and maybe the person you’re providing care for isn’t terribly appreciated. And all that.

But here’s the thing I ask people, because I’ve seen this with other friends and so on, where they, they didn’t engage in it because it was either too much or they convinced themselves that they just didn’t have time. My job is more important than my mom or whatever, right? And then their parent dies, and now they just have overwhelming guilt the rest of their life. I mean, I’ve regret, yeah, regret. Yeah, guilt, guilt and regret, and that doesn’t go away for a long time. And then, you know, should have, could have, would have.

I should have been there and we, my wife and I have none of that with our parents. Like we feel we did everything and it was, was it demanding? Was it stressful? Was it hard? Yes, but it was the most joyful thing that we’ve ever had the opportunity to do. Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes when people ask me that too, I’m like, It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody necessarily, but I would do it all over again. Yeah, yeah. So, I think, yeah, and, and also I think some of those things like when you’re caring for people, you do get that, would I’ve had as much quality time with my parents, had they not had all these chronic things happening and the nice coffee chats.

And so, I also think, you know, one of, one of my belief. is that like sometimes too and all that murky muck and of stuff that’s going on, the really the joyful moments really glimmer and shine even brighter because there’s so much kind of murky muck around it. Yeah. Yeah, it could happen, you know, at the hospital or, you know, helping someone in the restroom or whatever. You don’t know when those funny moments are going to come. And as an example, my father-in-law. Who, you know, father of 10 children, and he was very much a blue collar hardworking electrician and kind of an old school man’s man in that sense, you know, and kind of very just always very tough and strong guy but caring, loving person.

And as he aged and had health challenges, I’ll never forget we were at a family wedding. He said, he’s Scott. You can you help me? And I went, and he knew that he needed help to go to the bathroom. we were just you thought you were going and we were laughing and dying and joking around. We had so much fun and laugh and that and and he you know he knew how to make it light and I went and it was, it was great and it was it was it was that kind of a memory.

I have and because it was just the humanity of it and the other side, I think like someday hopefully we all get to be 100 or 110 and hopefully somebody cares enough to help us out, right? Yeah, yeah, super duper seniors we will be for sure, for sure. What does self-care look like for you now? Like what do you enjoy doing um to energize yourself because I, my definition of self-care is anything that is gonna give you peace of mind, gonna provide you physical or emotional energy or is just pure joy. Yeah.

It’s a variety of things. I mean, uh, it, it is good sleep. I’m a big fan and make that a priority. My wife and I go and I go for long walks, so the 10,000 steps a day, I think nothing is, nothing is better than a good long walk. We live in Minnesota, so when it’s 20 below, we have some really good warm clothes, warm boots and warmers, and we go walk whether it’s 20 below or 90. So the basic. Things of eating right and exercising and good sleep, but I love music.

We go to a lot of live music, you know, good friends that you spend time with, but I would say the day in, day out is find the joy in what you’re doing. So my job that I’m in, which is very demanding and so on, but I love it. It’s fun, you know, if you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. So you’ve got to You know, you got to find joy in the work, you know, and whether the work is your day job or caregiving, because if, if you, and it’s just that positive attitude, uh, if you know, if you approach it like, all right, we’ll take care of my mom and we’re going to have fun doing this, or, you know, that just sets the tone versus, oh boy, God, I gotta go help my mom.

this is gonna be a downer. Like, so you gotta figure out how to. So much of it is about like I think when you get to that point of like accepting it and reframing it, and even talking about like, you know, when I was first as a caregiver, like I was super hyper focused on physical self-care because it made sense that was kind of what put my parents in a in a health crisis situation. But there’s so much self-care that the social, like you mentioned, but, you know, financial, intellectual, like, even reframing things like, yeah, I got to research this, but I’m researching this so that this is gonna be, you know, a long-term care plan sustainable for my brother, which is going to give me more freedom, which is gonna, you know, allow me to have that peace of mind, which is ultimately self-care.

So it is kind of reframing some of that stuff so that you can make it sustainable is ultimately, I think. Goal and finding the joy for everybody. Right, and figuring out how to fit it into your life. So my friend Dean, who I love so much as a friend, as a quadriplegic, you know, we’ll load him up in his van and we’ll go do errands or go, go have dinner together, like, so you’re incorporating spending really quality time with him with something fun or go to see some music in the park or whatever it might be.

So now it’s not, you know. A chore, it’s something that we’ve turned into a fun activity. Yeah, it’s so true, and that’s a great for, you know, a buy one get one type of thing with that. Well, what are some, you know, any kind of parting words that you would like to say to fellow family caregivers or something that we didn’t touch on that you were hoping that we would have? Yeah, I think just to recap a couple of things. One is, you know, pick up the phone and call a super senior in your life today, friends.

Family neighbor, you know, and get in the habit of doing that, and, you know, just ask them how they’re doing and just listen and, and that will give back to you. So that would be the first thing. The second is, you know, just finding the joy in it. I mean, honestly, I can’t think of anything more rewarding than helping other people, and sometimes you’ll feel and get immediate gratification from that. Sometimes it might take a Well, but you know, it, it really feels good to help other people.

Yes, it does. Amazing. How do people stay in touch with you, Scott? Where do they learn more about Grandpad and, and where else should they connect with you? Yeah, so people interested in Grandpad come to our website, grandpa. net, and our 800 numbers right there big and bold at the top of every page. Call us. We we answer the phone. Human being, our team is there. Um, it’s 800-704-9412. For me personally, I’m a LinkedIn person. People can connect with me on LinkedIn. I love networking and connecting.

got lots of interesting partnerships that we do. You know, our mission as a company is to Improve the lives of millions of super seniors by reconnecting them in a safe, engaging way with their family, friends, and caregivers. When we do that, everybody in that circle of care benefits. Yes, well, sounds like you’re crushing it, so, and you’ve got our support in the community. And again, thank you for for the special offer that people can take advantage of. We’ll post that as well and link to all of the stuff in the show notes.

So thank you so much, Scott, for spending time with me today. Hey, great to be with you. Thank you for everything you’re doing, Elizabeth.

Hello podcast listener. If you’re caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia, you don’t want to miss all’s Authors podcast Untangling Alzheimer’s and dementia. I’m your host, Mary Anne Schuko, a registered nurse, author, and dementia daughter. In each episode, I interview one of our 300+ authors about their personal dementia story and why they chose to write about it, sharing intimate details and painfully obtained.

Colledge to help you on your own journey. We share a variety of stories across all diagnoses and from a range of caregiving experiences. You can find us on your favorite podcast platform in the whole Care Network. Remember, you are not alone. One can sing a lonely song, but we chose to form a choir and create harmony. Find us at allsauthors.com. See you soon.

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