Our Story

It started with a notebook.

I became a caregiver for a patient with dementia by chance. The first day I arrived at her house, there was a notebook on the kitchen table. It held her medication list, and it was inconsistent, hard to follow, and disorganized. Some days had an entry, others none.

So I built a template with columns and rows. Medications first, then the daily routine, the exercises, the observations, and notes for the next caregiver.

The information existed. It just wasn’t reaching the people who needed it.

A watercolour of the spiral notebook: a week of medication names down the side, days across the top, and hand-drawn check marks in the grid
A watercolour of an older woman in a wheelchair listening to a record player, with her younger self dancing in the music above it
Then something else happened. One day I asked her husband, a workaholic his whole life, whether she liked music. He said no. Later her daughter told me she loved Motown, and that she loved to dance and sing. That afternoon I put music on, and a long day became a very good one. That stayed with me, and I came to a conclusion. Caring for someone is not only about medications and medical appointments. It is about making sure the things a person did in their life are not forgotten. Even when they no longer remember much themselves, our work as caregivers is to reinforce what brings them joy, and to keep those details from being lost when care passes from one caregiver to the next.
A torn scrap of aged paper, taped at the top, handwritten: That’s when the idea became bigger than the spreadsheet.

From experience to a system

What we’re building

OneFamily, OneCare connects the people involved in someone’s care so the information they need stays with them. What was taken, what they did, what helps them on a hard day. So that it is not left forgotten among notebooks, text messages, and memory.

1F1C is in development under Meridian Works LLC. We’re designing it now, with families and caregivers in mind rather than institutions.

Even if they forget, we don’t.