For dementia & Alzheimer's caregivers
What you're going through has a name.
The sleep deprivation eroding your patience. The guilt of losing your temper with someone you love. The depression pulling you inward. The isolation deepening as friends stop calling. It's not separate problems — it's a single, recognized syndrome that affects millions of dementia caregivers worldwide.
And the cascade it creates is breakable.
Dementia Caregiver Syndrome
If you're caring for someone with dementia, this isn't burnout. It's a syndrome.
Caring for someone with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia changes your body. The sleep deprivation erodes your patience and judgment. The guilt of snapping at someone you love feeds the depression. The depression pulls you away from your own life. And the isolation that follows makes everything worse. It's one condition, not a list of separate complaints.
Decades of peer-reviewed research document this pattern specifically in dementia caregivers — elevated cortisol, immune suppression, cardiovascular damage, cognitive decline. The evidence is overwhelming, but the healthcare system hasn't caught up with a unified diagnostic framework.
In the American healthcare system, the gap is even wider. There's no standard screening at your doctor's office, no treatment protocol, and no insurance code for what you're going through. That's why so many dementia caregivers suffer in silence — not because the evidence isn't there, but because the system hasn't caught up.
Syndrome Criteria
- It's predictable — the pattern is consistent across dementia caregivers worldwide.
- It affects everything — sleep, mood, immune system, heart health, cognitive function.
- It gets worse the longer you care for someone with dementia.
- It shows up in your body — cortisol, T-cells, blood pressure, accelerated aging.
- It's distinct — dementia caregiving produces health outcomes measurably worse than other forms of caregiving.
The Evidence
This is what dementia caregiving does to your body.
63%
Higher mortality risk
Strained caregivers — the majority caring for someone with dementia — are dying at significantly higher rates than people their age who aren’t caregiving. This isn’t a metaphor.
Schulz & Beach, JAMA, 1999PTSD-level
Chronic stress hormones
Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers show stress hormone levels researchers typically see in combat veterans. Not a bad week — every single day.
Vitaliano et al.↓ Immune
Your body’s defenses are down
Dementia caregivers get sick more often, heal slower, and respond poorly to vaccines — even if they were young and healthy before caregiving started.
Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1987–2003The Cascade
How the syndrome feeds itself.
Each symptom triggers the next. When someone with dementia calls you with the same question forty times a day, it isn't just one stressor among many. The repetitive calls are the mechanism that locks all the other loops together.
The same call, forty times a day.
The questions that never stop. Looping conversations, sundowning crises, relentless contact that fragments every hour.
Your sleep shatters.
Night episodes, sundowning, 3 AM calls. 63% of dementia caregivers report chronic sleep disruption.
Depression, brain fog, emotional exhaustion take hold.
Sustained cortisol floods your system. 30–40% of dementia caregivers meet criteria for clinical depression.
Your career erodes. Finances strain.
57% of caregivers report significant work disruption. Income drops while care costs escalate.
Friends stop calling. Relationships fracture.
Social isolation deepens. Guilt and resentment spiral. You become invisible to everyone except the person who needs you most.
Your own health breaks.
Cardiovascular risk, immune suppression, accelerated aging. 63% higher mortality than non-caregivers your age.
The self-reinforcing loop
Sicker caregiver → Less patience → Patient agitation → More calls → Less sleep → repeat
Breaking the Cascade
We built this because we lived it.
As dementia caregivers ourselves, we know the cascade from the inside — the nights that never end, the guilt that never lets up, the feeling that no one in the healthcare system actually sees you.
We built Proxi to address the specific pattern that makes dementia caregiving uniquely destructive. It's designed to interrupt the cascade at the points where you need help most and none exists.
Peace
Helps de-escalate agitation and confusion — without medication. Gentle, consistent, patient.
Continuity
Keeps routines, relationships, and the story of who they are consistent — even on the hardest days.
Respite
Absorbs or reroutes the repetitive calls and high-friction moments so you can sleep, work, or just breathe.
Memories
A private family legacy vault — capturing their stories, their voice, who they are. While there's still time.
Monitor
Watches for early warning signs — UTIs, fall patterns, behavioral shifts — before they become emergencies.
Coordinate
Keeps family members and care providers aligned so you don't have to repeat yourself to everyone.
What Proxi is not
Proxi works alongside your doctors and therapists, not instead of them. It doesn't diagnose or prescribe. Everything we've built is grounded in published research on what dementia caregivers actually go through.
How It Works
Three steps. Your pace. Your terms.
We meet your family where you are — no complicated setup, no learning curve, no added burden on your already full plate.
Join Early Access.
Sign up and tell us about your caregiving situation. We start by understanding what you’re going through.
We learn what you need.
Every dementia caregiver’s situation is different. Proxi adapts to yours — your schedule, your challenges, your family.
You get your time back.
Sleep through the night. Make it to work. Call a friend. Proxi gives you room to breathe — and to be the person your loved one needs when it counts.
In Their Own Words
You are not alone in this.
“I haven’t slept through the night in two years. By the time I realize I need help, I’m too exhausted to find it. The guilt of even thinking about my own needs feels like betrayal.”
— Spouse caregiver
Shared with permission. Details changed to protect privacy.
Be among the first.
We're building Proxi with caregivers, not just for them. Early access is limited — join the group shaping what comes next.
Are you a clinician? Partner with us →
Questions
Frequently asked
It’s the pattern of health damage that accumulates when you’re caring for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Sleep deprivation erodes your patience and judgment. The guilt of losing your temper feeds the depression. Depression pulls you inward. Isolation deepens. Each symptom triggers the next — it’s a single condition, not a list of separate problems. Decades of research document it specifically in dementia caregivers.
Proxi is a new kind of support built by dementia caregivers, for dementia caregivers. It’s not a chatbot, not a scheduling tool, not a symptom checker, and not a replacement for your doctor. It’s designed to address the specific pattern that makes dementia caregiving uniquely destructive.
Not at all. Proxi works alongside your clinical care, not instead of it. It doesn’t diagnose or prescribe. Think of it as the support that fills the gaps between your appointments.
Your family’s data is private and encrypted. We never sell personal information. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.
The individual health impacts — the depression, the immune suppression, the cardiovascular risk, the cognitive decline — are each backed by decades of published, peer-reviewed research specifically in dementia caregivers. Every medical system worldwide recognizes these health consequences, but none has yet created a unified diagnostic framework that brings them together as one condition. We’re working to change that.
Anyone living the day-to-day reality of dementia caregiving. Spouses, adult children, professional caregivers — if you’re in it, you’re exactly who we built this for. You’ll help shape what Proxi becomes.