Empowering Cognitive Caregivers: How The Care Hack Is Transforming Family Support in Healthcare
Co-founders Mitul Desai and Eli Shalenberg, MD, are on a mission to bring family caregivers into the center of the healthcare system, starting with those supporting loved ones with complex brain and mental health conditions.
More than 30 million Americans serve as family caregivers for loved ones with long-term cognitive conditions such as schizophrenia, dementia, and brain injuries. These individuals, whom The Care Hack calls cognitive caregivers, are the often-overlooked backbone of the U.S. healthcare system. They manage medications, coordinate appointments, fill in systemic gaps, and keep their loved ones out of hospitals. Without them, the system would collapse.
Despite their essential role, these caregivers receive little to no structured support. Their responsibilities stretch over years, sometimes decades, and come with an intense emotional and financial burden. The consequences are profound: caregiver burnout, family crisis, poor patient outcomes, and billions in preventable healthcare costs. While some existing solutions address eldercare or general caregiver needs, cognitive caregivers face a more complex, stigmatized, and isolating reality – and they are often left behind.
The Care Hack is a digital platform created specifically for cognitive caregivers – those supporting loved ones with serious mental illness, dementia, stroke, or brain injuries. It acknowledges that caregiving is an incredibly difficult job and provides the structure, tools, and support that families have been missing.
The product is designed to be simple from the start. It takes just two minutes to onboard. Once inside the app, caregivers gain immediate access to expert videos that are personalized to their situation, along with a dedicated human coach who helps apply the lessons and navigate specific challenges. Caregivers can also connect with peers, creating a sense of community that reduces isolation and builds emotional resilience.
Healthcare providers simply refer families to the app. The Care Hack handles onboarding, engagement, and reporting. It integrates with existing workflows and even enables providers to bill for caregiver training using newly-approved Medicare codes. The platform extends a provider’s care team without adding to their workload.
Importantly, families never pay for the service. The company’s business model focuses on provider and payer partnership
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Last updated 01/03/2026.