ElderKey Help

Coming Soon

Schedule Texts To Loved Ones

Schedule Texts To Caregivers

Schedule Texts To Loved Ones

Schedule Texts To Caregivers

What is a Champion?

A “Champion” is someone who helps an aging loved one manage the Elder Journey. This can be an adult child, spouse, friend, sibling, or other relative who helps the Elder with planning, coordinates caregiving, and strives to make their aging loved one’s life more fulfilling. Champions may also do caregiving for the Elder by assisting them with hands-on day-to-day tasks.

What is a Caregiver?

A “Caregiver” is someone who assists the elder with hands-on day-to-day tasks but is not a “Champion”. Caregivers may or may not be paid but are not involved family members or the Elder’s close friends. If someone is designated to be a Caregiver in ElderKey, they do not have access to invite new people to join the Journey Team. Also, Champions can mark sensitive activities to be hidden from Caregivers.

What is a Journey Team?

The “Journey Team” comprises all the Champions and Caregivers who help a particular aging loved one with the Elder Journey.

What are Assessments?

ElderKey currently offers three assessments for Journey Team Members to perform.

Personal Care - This is also known as “Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)”. It documents how well the Elder can take care of their own bodily needs.

Household Management - This is also known as “Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs)”. It documents how well the Elder can interact with their physical environment.

Quality of Life – This assessment type is unique to ElderKey. It documents how well the Elder can function physically, socially, emotionally, and mentally at this stage of their Elder Journey.

What are Activities? 

Journey team members perform Activities to improve the Elder Journey. To help find and organize Activities, each one can be marked with one or more category. The Activity Dashboard allows team members to setup and maintain the information defining each Activity. Activities are assigned to individual journey team members or groups of team members to share.

What is a Champion?

A “Champion” is someone who helps an aging loved one manage the Elder Journey. This can be an adult child, spouse, friend, sibling, or other relative who helps the Elder with planning, coordinates caregiving, and strives to make their aging loved one’s life more fulfilling. Champions may also do caregiving for the Elder by assisting them with hands-on day-to-day tasks.

What is a scheduled message?

A scheduled message is a text message you’ve created to automatically be sent by ElderKey to your loved one based on the time and date you scheduled. These messages can be scheduled to be sent one time or also set to be sent multiple times and on multiple days.

What are the three different types of scheduled messages?

ElderKey currently offers the following types of scheduled messages:

Reminders - ElderKey gives you the power to schedule reminders that will be sent to your loved one at the right time, every time.

Yes/No Questions - Specifically built to easily allow you to send questions that can be easily replied to with a simple Yes or No. ElderKey will automatically add “(Y or N)?” to the end of your question if it’s not already there.. This unique message type also allows you to automatically send a follow-up text asking either “Why?” or “Why Not?” depending on your loved ones' answer. 

ElderKey will understand your loved ones' response regardless if they reply with “Y”, “Yes”, or “Ok” (The same is true for “N” and “No”).

If the response is sent within 15min ElderKey will treat it as a response to the initial scheduled message, at which point the question(s) along with the response(s) are automatically grouped and sent as a text to all other team members so they’re aware of the question(s) and answer(s). If the aging loved one does not text back within 15 minutes, ElderKey assumes the Yes/No question or follow-up question is unanswered and team members will be automatically notified of that with a text.

Open-Ended Questions – This message type is exactly what it sounds like! ElderKey enables you to schedule open-ended questions for your loved one. ElderKey will automatically add “?” to the end of your question if it’s not already there. Responses for open-ended questions are handled in the same way as Yes/No questions.

Click here to play with text message examples

What options are there to schedule the dates and times of messages?

Messages can be scheduled to be sent one time or also set to be sent multiple times and on multiple days. To send a message repeatedly, you can set a start and end date for any particular scheduled message. Additionally, you can select what exact days of the week it should be sent on. 

If no start date is entered, it will start when the specified time occurs next.  If no end date is entered, it will continue without end. To send the same text multiple times on the same day, a duplicate scheduled message should be defined with different specified times.

All scheduled messages will be sent within the timezone set for your loved one.

How can scheduled messages be reused once they stop being sent?

Scheduled messages that were sent in the past but have no upcoming send dates can be accessed on your “Texting History” page. You can easily search the relevant past text using the search options, where you can then select the text and edit the Scheduled Message. From here you can easily edit the message schedule to add additional send dates.

Can I use ElderKey for several of my loved ones?

Yes, you can! You can simply create an additional “Journey” for your other loved one(s). When you create additional Journeys all scheduled messages and other team members are kept separate from the other Journeys. Lastly, acceptance of the terms and conditions and your ability to STOP and START texts for any given team member will affect each Journey separately.

What happens if someone doesn't accept the terms & conditions text when they sign up?

ElderKey will not automatically send any texts to that person until the terms and conditions are accepted. 

Once a team member accepts the ElderKey terms & conditions, how can they choose to stop receiving automated texts from ElderKey?

All team members can text ElderKey “STOP” at any time to discontinue ElderKey text messages. Additionally, they can also text ElderKey “START”, and will once again begin receiving automatic texts.  

How many Journeys can one phone number be used on?

The same phone number can be used on as many as three Journeys. 

How are mobile numbers used?

• ElderKey will only use mobile numbers to send text messages.

• ElderKey will never give away any of the mobile numbers to anyone else.

• People receiving texts from ElderKey can reply "Stop" at any time. ElderKey will then not send them any more texts.  

• ElderKey relies on the premier communications provider, Twilio, to deliver texts. Together, we adhere to all government texting regulations.

• You are in control. ElderKey will not use the mobile numbers for anything other than what you have told it to do.

• You can easily turn off any part, or all of, ElderKey at any time.

• You can easily change any of the mobile numbers at any time. You can even put in test mobile numbers to "Play" with ElderKey first, and then change them to the real ones later.

What do I need to get signed up and started?

1. Enter what you call your loved one.

This name will be displayed within ElderKey and shown when everyone receives text messages from ElderKey.

2. Enter your loved one's time zone.

All scheduled messages will be sent at the time based on your loved one's time zone.

3. Enter your loved one's mobile number.

We recommend that you have a conversation with your loved one explaining that they will receive an initial text message asking them to agree to use ElderKey. They should reply with “Y” or “Yes”. After that, they will receive scheduled (and unscheduled) text messages from you and any other members participating on your team.

~ See here for more information describing how this number will be used.

4. Enter your mobile number.

ElderKey will use your number to send you responses to your scheduled messages.
~ You too will receive an initial text message asking you to agree to use ElderKey.

5. Schedule your first message.

Schedule text messages that are sent to your loved one at the right time, every time.
If you would like to speak with someone about finding a Professional Care Manager who can advise you or your family personally, please contact our services partner, Senior Care Solutions Online.

You can also send us a message or call us at 888-999-4280.
Schedule A Free Expert Consultation
or call us at 888-999-4280