Seeking Partners

Grace

Dementia Carers

Support for the people caring for someone with dementia — when nobody else is asking how they are.

Grace calls family carers of people living with dementia. She listens to the carer — not the person they look after — detecting burnout, anticipatory grief, and isolation in the people who give everything and are rarely asked how they are.

The carers themselves are at risk

In 2022, Australia counted at least 96,800 informal carers of people living with dementia — and the national statistics agency calls that a minimum.1 The toll on them is well documented: roughly one in three meets criteria for clinical depression,2 and around half report loneliness.3 Between 47% and 80% experience anticipatory grief — mourning someone who is still alive4 — perhaps the least-named experience in dementia caring, and one almost nobody asks about.

Support exists, but it isn't reaching them. By mid-2023, only around 6% of Australian carers had ever accessed Carer Gateway, the national support program built for them.5 That navigation gap — carers who qualify for help and never find it — is the gap Grace exists to close: identifying carers under strain and connecting them to the services already there.

96,800

informal carers of people with dementia in Australia — a stated minimum1

~1 in 3

dementia carers meet criteria for clinical depression (31.2% pooled)2

50.8%

of dementia carers report loneliness, across 11,134 carers in 17 countries3

557 days

median delay to residential placement when the carer was supported, in a landmark RCT6

What Grace does

Powered by Kate

Every call Grace makes is orchestrated by Kate, the intelligence engine behind all CAREPLANS AI companions. Kate manages scheduling, emotional analysis, risk detection, and clinical escalation across every persona and every vertical.

Grace's proactive call cadence is modelled on human telephone-support evidence: telephone counselling has reduced depressive symptoms in dementia carers in a Cochrane review of randomised trials,7 and a purely telephone-delivered program improved carer depression in a 250-person RCT.8 Grace herself is a screening and navigation support tool informed by that evidence — not a treatment, not a diagnosis — and we treat her evaluation as ongoing.

Grace is not a medical device. Clinical escalation supports — it does not replace — clinicians and care teams.

Partner with us

We are seeking dementia care partners to bring Grace to family carers. If you work in this space, we would welcome the conversation.

andrew@careplans.io

If you or someone you know needs support now: National Dementia Helpline 1800 100 500 (24/7) · Carer Gateway 1800 422 737 · Lifeline 13 11 14 · In an emergency call 000.

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Sources

  1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Dementia in Australia — Carers of people with dementia, findings from the ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) 2022: 96,800 informal carers, 69% primary carers. AIHW notes SDAC undercounts and treats this as a minimum.
  2. Collins R.N. & Kishita N. (2019). Prevalence of depression and burden among informal caregivers of people with dementia: a meta-analysis. Ageing and Society. Pooled depression prevalence 31.2% across 43 studies (N=16,911).
  3. Victor C. et al. (2024). Meta-analysis of loneliness and social isolation in family carers of people with dementia. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 50.8% lonely, 37.1% socially isolated (27 studies, 11,134 carers, 17 countries).
  4. Dehpour & Koman (2023). Anticipatory grief in informal carers of people with dementia: systematic review. Aging & Mental Health. Prevalence 47–80% across studies, with wide heterogeneity.
  5. Australian Government Department of Social Services, Impact Evaluation of Carer Gateway — Final Report (2024): approximately 6% of Australian carers had accessed Carer Gateway as at June 2023.
  6. Mittelman M.S. et al. (2006). Improving caregiver well-being delays nursing home placement of patients with Alzheimer disease. Neurology, 67(9):1592–1599. RCT, N=406 spouse carers: median placement delay 557 days; 61.2% of the effect mediated by gains in carer depression, social support and response to behaviour.
  7. Lins S. et al. (2014). Telephone counselling for informal carers of people with dementia. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CD009126. Depressive symptoms SMD 0.32 (95% CI 0.01–0.63), moderate certainty; effects real but small.
  8. Tremont G. et al. (2015). FITT-Caregiver: a randomised trial of telephone-delivered psychosocial intervention for dementia caregivers (N=250, 16 telephone contacts over 6 months). Improved caregiver depression (p=0.003), comparable with face-to-face delivery.

Statistics describe population research, not Grace's own outcomes; Grace's effectiveness is under evaluation. No randomised trials of AI voice agents for carers exist yet — Grace is modelled on the human telephone-support evidence above.