App lets the infirm crowdsource help with daily tasks

STANDWITH enables caregivers to tap patients' friends and family to help with everyday chores.

Falling seriously ill can be a tough thing to go through, and to make matters worse, all of the daily chores still need doing but are much more difficult to complete. While ideas such as Bffl Bags have intended to provide cancer patients with the comforts to help them get through their hospital stays, STANDWITH is a new app that enables caregivers to tap patients’ friends and family to help with everyday chores.

Created by Fuck Cancer founder Yael Cohen, the app essentially works as a TaskRabbit that relies on goodwill rather than small payments. Even when family members are ill, they still need to take care of the laundry, groceries and picking up the kids from school while keeping on top of medication schedules and the stress of being poorly. STANDWITH lets caregivers use patients’ contacts and social networks to let them know if they can help out with small tasks. Friends can see who has agreed to do which tasks and can chat via the app to arrange sharing of duties. Those who can’t donate their time can still use the app to purchase needed items and services via AmazonFresh or Uber.

Although still in private beta, STANDWITH could eventually make living with illness easier by more clearly and easily broadcasting the useful things that friends could help out with. Are there other ways to make the home lives of chronically ill people easier?