ChatGPT: Caregiving & Loss

Get a parent abroad to the hospital for sudden vision loss with ChatGPT

Ayrin Santoso, who lives in San Francisco, heard from a sister that their mother, Fifi, had abruptly lost vision in the left eye at home in Surabaya, Indonesia. The family couldn't get a doctor's appointment, and a nurse recommended eye drops. Santoso gave ChatGPT every detail the family had. It replied 'This is very serious,' said the symptoms fit problems such as hypertensive retinopathy and prompted the family to check Fifi's blood pressure right away. It was over 200 mmHg, which helped Santoso persuade relatives to push for hospital admission the next day. The doctor said Fifi was near a stroke event; Fifi stayed in the hospital for more than a week and has recovered about 95% of the vision in that eye.

Prepare for a parent's cancer treatment talks with a tumor-board-style ChatGPT prompt

When John Bailey's mother's cancer came back, Bailey set up an AI assistant loaded with the mother's records and treatment history, using ChatGPT Projects and custom GPTs, to summarize test results and pathology reports in plain language. For big decisions, Bailey ran Deep Research in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini with a prompt that had the AI reason as an oncologist, a radiation specialist, a molecular pathologist, a clinical-trials expert and a patient advocate, which produced a detailed, source-cited report. On at least two occasions it surfaced details that were initially overlooked, including a finding in a radiology report. The AI didn't choose treatments; it helped the family ask better questions.

Turn prescription label photos into a medication table for family caregiving with ChatGPT

Kok Yong Lee is a caregiver to several family members, each with their own appointments and medications. In ChatGPT, Lee made a project for each person, uploaded photos of all the prescription labels, checked that ChatGPT extracted the information accurately and had it build a table of each medication, dosage and purpose. ChatGPT memorized the table, so when Lee notices a new symptom, Lee can ask right away whether it might relate to a medication. Lee says the answer 'should not be taken as an authoritative answer' but helps with triage.

Shape your own memories into a father's eulogy with ChatGPT as editor

Writing the eulogy for a 99-year-old father, Alec Duthie, the writer behind Wheelchair John didn't ask ChatGPT to write it. Instead, the writer gave it personal stories and memories and asked questions such as 'Where would this story fit best?', 'Does this repeat something I've already said?' and 'Does this sound like natural speech?' The finished eulogy took almost twenty minutes to deliver, and afterward people said: 'That was a great eulogy. Thank you for sharing your relationship with him.'

Find support and coping strategies for a loved one's Alzheimer's delusions with ChatGPT

The writer behind Alzheimer's Witness lives with Frank, whom the writer has loved for 44 years and who now has Alzheimer's disease. Living with Frank's delusions means answering Frank's questions quickly and soothingly, so the writer talks to ChatGPT, asking questions that ease Frank's mind and the writer's own. What the writer learned brought a better understanding of what Frank is going through and how to meet Frank's needs, and ChatGPT's strategies for coping with a delusion became 'an invaluable source of support and sanity when it is most needed'. In the writer's words: 'With AI, I no longer feel as alone.'

Write a mother's obituary for the local paper with ChatGPT (partial)

Soon after Jeff Fargo's mother died, while Fargo was still emotionally raw, the mother's friends started asking about an obituary. Fargo asked ChatGPT for an obituary to memorialize the mother and typed for a really long time to capture the nuance of who the mother was. The result was printed in the local paper. Fargo felt it was passable and saw it as a gift, since it didn't take a lot of time or more emotional effort. Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell, who read it, found it 'serviceable' but almost 'templated', without all the emotional resonance Fargo had poured in, and suggests using AI drafts as a head start to edit and make your own.

Turn a parent's care needs into a shareable daily schedule with ChatGPT

Lisa Mitchell, 59, of Brooklyn, cares for a 92-year-old father who is legally blind and has several health problems. Mitchell puts all of the father's needs into ChatGPT, including occupational therapy, physical therapy, medication routines, adult day care appointments and daily care tasks, and asks for a structured daily plan to share with a brother. 'The schedule that is created gives me back time and peace of mind, and keeps my dad's care organized and my family on the same page.'

Make sense of a parent's medical records before a doctor visit with ChatGPT

After Heather Lambert-Shemo's dad spent time in the ICU, the family faced dozens of pages of records and a dozen medications. Lambert-Shemo photographed the pages, blacked out identifying details and asked ChatGPT to translate them into plain language, find trends and list questions for the primary care doctor. It gave the family a clearer picture of what led to the hospital stay and turned up a significant diagnosis the dad had misunderstood. Lambert-Shemo later shared the exact prompt in the post's comments.

Organize parents' Medicare options and a checklist with ChatGPT, then catch a missing medication

Helping their parents review Medicare coverage for 2027, Matthew Guldin gathered details on coverage, prescriptions and doctors and used ChatGPT to organize it, build a checklist, explain enrollment requirements and flag areas to research. It pulled together information spread across many sites and raised questions Guldin hadn't considered, but comparing its answers with official Medicare enrollment information showed several mistakes and omissions, including leaving out one of their father's important medications when evaluating Part D drug coverage.

Manage a parent's Parkinson's and dementia care paperwork and family updates with ChatGPT

When their mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's and dementia, Matt Strain and their brother shared the caregiving. Strain used ChatGPT from diagnosis to their mother's passing to simplify medical information, clarify medications and contraindications, streamline insurance paperwork, and communicate with medical teams and family; Strain wrote an accompanying article with the prompts used.

Use ChatGPT as a case manager across three hospitals for a parent's care

During three months of a mother's illness across three hospitals, Dror Grof fed ChatGPT charts, doctors' notes, medications and daily updates. After realizing medical decisions belonged with the care team, Grof used it to explain jargon, suggest what to ask next, set up a subjective pain scale (some staff asked to see it as a graph), keep one source of truth when doctors changed, transcribe some conversations, and draft transition reports between facilities.