Care Companion

Inspiration

My grandparents take like 5-6 different medicines every day, and I noticed they kept forgetting to take them on time. My grandma once skipped her blood pressure medication for 3 days straight because she simply forgot. That scared me. I thought — what if there was a simple app that just reminded them what to take and when, without being complicated? No fancy features, no confusing menus. Just a clean page that says "hey, take your Metformin at 8 AM." That's how Care Companion was born. For the theme of automation, my project tried to automate the mundane tasks of people of trying to remember their medicines, vaccines and appointments. This automation would help people get an automated reminder without having to log their medicines on pen and paper, often the way senior citizens track.

What it does

Care Companion is a health management web app for senior citizens and their caregivers. Users can:

Log medications with dosage and times per day Schedule vaccinations, doctor visits, and medical tests Get daily reminders on their dashboard showing what's due today Track upcoming appointments Mark tasks as done and see their progress percentage The whole app is designed to be super simple — big buttons, large text, no confusing navigation. A caregiver can log in with the same account and monitor everything.

How we built it

Frontend: Plain HTML and CSS — no JavaScript frameworks, just simple forms and pages Backend: Python with Flask (a lightweight web framework) Database: Google Sheets API — instead of setting up a complicated database server, we used a Google Spreadsheet as our data store. Each tab (users, medications, reminders, etc.) acts like a database table Authentication: bcrypt for password hashing, Flask sessions for keeping users logged in Structure: Organized routes into separate files (auth, records, reminders) using Flask Blueprints Challenges we ran into Google Sheets API was tricky to set up — getting the service account credentials, sharing the spreadsheet, and making sure column headers matched exactly took a while Figuring out how Flask sessions work (why my login kept disappearing) The pass statement in Python silently breaks functions — I had all my code written but nothing worked because pass was above it and the function was exiting early Making reminders show up only on the right day and respecting end dates for medication courses CSS responsiveness — making it look good on both laptop and phone screens Accomplishments that we're proud of The app actually works end to end — register, login, add medications, get reminders, mark them done A senior citizen can genuinely use this without needing help (we tested with my grandparents) No external database needed — Google Sheets keeps it free and simple Built the whole thing in a weekend with basic Python and HTML knowledge

What we learned

How to connect Python to Google Sheets using gspread and service accounts Flask routing, blueprints, sessions, and template rendering with Jinja2 How to think about UX for non-tech users (big fonts, minimal options, clear labels) That debugging takes way longer than writing code How to structure a web project with separate files instead of dumping everything in one file What's next for Care Companion Adding a separate caregiver login that can view (but not edit) the patient's data Push notifications or email reminders so users dont have to open the app A simple calendar view showing all upcoming events visually Option to share health records with a doctor via a link Maybe a mobile app version using the same Google Sheets backend