Recently I have done two pieces of research about technology and Dementia.
The first was done using online video to look at a “Dementia Friendly” version of Alexa.
Whilst it is true that you can set reminders with Alexa, I use my phone and memory clock.
It can be the case that after the reminder you forget to do whatever it is, so one suggestion was that Alexa would ask you if you had done the task say 20 minutes later.
Another suggestion was that if say you had a fall at home and couldn’t get to a phone you could get Alexa to dial 999 and there would be a pre-recorded message or a text file that could be sent to the operator containing your contact details, medical conditions and medication.
This research is at an early stage, but will be interesting to see how it progresses.
The second piece of research was while I was at a Dementia Diaries meet up in Birmingham.
Amanda Lazar, Assistant Professor in the College of Information Studies in Human-Computer Interaction and Health Informatics at the University of Maryland USA, was at the meet up to learn more about Dementia Diaries for her research into Technology and Dementia.
Amanda would spend the two days taking part in sessions discussing Dementia Diaries and then doing recorded interviews with us all individually to find out what benefit we all have from doing the diaries and our hopes that it will spread a wider awareness of a life with Dementia.
The research project will not be completed until around September 2019, at which time we will receive a copy of the final research.
As you can see reader, two more examples of how easy it can be for someone to take part in research, not the Frankenstein impression that can come with research.
