Caregiver burnout is one of the quieter strains on health systems, and technology is now being tested as a way to ease it without losing the human touch. Millions of people look after a relative with dementia, disability or long-term illness, often for years, and the work leaves many exhausted, anxious and isolated. The question Forbes put to the field is whether software can lighten the load of caregiver burnout while keeping a person, rather than a screen, at the centre of the care.
One answer comes from TCARE, a caregiver support platform that pairs an AI assessment with a human care specialist. Ali Ahmadi co-founded the company in 2017 after watching his own family struggle with caregiving, and the platform uses 15 years of longitudinal data to spot which caregivers are most at risk of caregiver burnout. When a caregiver signs up, a care specialist carries out a 20 to 40 minute assessment by phone or video, then stays in touch as a navigator to services and support.
“We’re not throwing technology at caregivers, technology is the tool but not the enabler that creates trust,” Ahmadi told Forbes. The care specialist offers empathy, advocacy and a steady connection to resources, while the software works in the background to flag risks and match the caregiver with help. TCARE works with managed care organisations, long-term care insurers, employers and state and federally funded agencies, which offer the platform free of charge to policy holders.
The results the company reports on caregiver burnout are striking. It says 84 percent of users report lower levels of depression, and that its work has contributed to a 20 percent reduction in home and community based and long-term care service use, along with a 21 month average delay in nursing home and assisted living placement. Those figures come from the company, and they have not been tested in a large independent trial, so they should be read as a company claim rather than settled science.
Caregiver burnout and the new evidence
Independent evidence is now catching up. A systematic review and meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Digital Health on 6 November 2025 pulled together 16 studies covering 2,716 family caregivers and found that digital interventions, including mobile apps, websites, telemonitoring and telecoaching, cut the burden and stress behind caregiver burnout in the short term. The effect on burden was moderate, and the effect on stress was similar, but the studies varied widely, and the review could not show whether the gains last over the longer term.
A separate systematic review in the journal Assistive Technology, published online in March 2026, reached a similar verdict for a wider set of tools. It looked at social robots, smart tablets, home monitoring and telecare for older adults with cognitive impairments and disabilities, and found that assistive technology reduced caregiver distress, role strain, worry about the older adult, burnout, anxiety and feelings of losing control, while improving caregiver well-being. The authors said more studies are needed to pin down how each type of tool helps.
Caregiver burnout and tools that watch quietly
Other companies have taken a quieter route to caregiver burnout. Cognitive Systems, a Canadian firm, built a system called Caregiver by Cognitive that uses ordinary Wi-Fi signals to sense movement in a home, with no cameras and nothing for the older person to wear or switch on. Its co-founder built it after his parents refused cameras and voice assistants in their home, and the system sends a daily check-in to the family instead of demanding constant calls.
The design choices matter because the people being cared for often resist being watched. A camera in the living room or a wearable that needs charging can feel like surveillance, and a tool that gets switched off helps nobody facing caregiver burnout. Passive monitoring, a check-in message and a human specialist to call are all attempts to give families reassurance without taking control away from the person receiving care.
None of this replaces respite care, paid help or a doctor. What the evidence supports so far is narrower: digital tools can cut caregiver burnout and stress in the short term, and they work best when a person stays in the loop. The Forbes question has a provisional answer: technology can ease the strain, but only when it is built around the relationship between the caregiver, the person they care for and the specialist who knows them both.