Once again, I would love to welcome the lovely Erica Silva to The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver. Erica Silva is a Freelance writer by day, and sports fan by night. I write about beauty and health-related issues (but not at the same time). I live simply, give generously, watch football and a technology lover. Find me on Twitter @ericadsilva1
What is dementia?
Dementia mainly consists of a decline in a person’s mental and cognitive abilities critical enough to impact a person’s daily life. While many of us may go through certain situations our daily lives such as forgetting why we entered a room, remembering people’s names, etc. Dementia is much more than that. It is not just a particular disease, but in fact covers a wide variety of symptoms such as impaired memory, communication, and the decline of a person’s thinking skills.
How can technology help?
These days, due to the internet and other electronic devices some beneficial and useful tools have been established to help support individuals who are suffering from dementia. With new apps being launched in the app store every day, one of the biggest challenges for people would be as to which application would be best suited for them or their loved one suffering from dementia. Look no further, we’ve compiled for you the seven best apps to take care of dementia patients.
- Medisoft
When it comes to the hassle of paperwork and other time-consuming things, which have to be carried out during a scheduled appointment with a doctor. This app helps to ease that irritating inconvenience; valuable information can be noted down through the iPad handed over at the counter to the patient, and that information can be later transferred to a computer or any other device present at the clinic or the hospital. Memory loss being evident in a dementia patient, this could be a very useful app to the doctor. As information lost by the dementia patient can be stored in the device and can be later revisited for cross-checking purposes. Medisoft technical support makes it easier for doctors to use their software and get instant answers for their queries. - My House Of Memories
Although anyone can use this app, this is mainly aimed for dementia patients. Designed by National Museums Liverpool, this application helps you revisit memories from the past, bringing them back to life virtually. An additional feature of creating your memory tree can hold significant benefits for dementia patients; they can save their favourite memories in the form of videos and pictures, which can be revisited anytime in the future. This helps them keep in touch with their minds. Furthermore, the privacy policy of this application only lets the user share their memories with particular people only if they wish to. - Lumosity
Used by 60 million people worldwide, this app offers a wide variety of cognitive and scientific games to stimulate the user’s brain by putting forward challenging games one step after another. This application is usually used by dementia patients to strengthen their ability to pay attention to the right things and ignore the irrelevant information in the game as well as in their everyday life. People could also use this with the chances of dementia occurring, to prevent the symptoms from occurring. - Alzheimer’s and other Dementias Daily Companion – An extension of the book: Confidence to care
This application is devised by Home Instead Senior Care specifically to give ease and confidence to dementia caretakers. This application consists of tips and advises on how to take care of dementia patients, concerning their behaviour and situations they would have to go through on the day to day basis, this application also gives 24/7 caregiving assistance via phone or email. - Alzheimer’s Society – Taking point
Being diagnosed with dementia can be very distressing for the person, and what better way to cope with that distress than sharing your experience and listening to other people going through the same situation. Taking point is developed for that very reason, providing a platform to dementia patients with an online support and discussion forum. People suffering from dementia or their caretakers can consult this online forum for advice related to the disease or just simply share their experience. - Book of you
Another application developed to revive memories of people suffering from dementia. This application benefits the patient through reminiscence therapy by creating a personalised storybook of a person living with dementia. Helps you save precious moments using words, pictures, music, and videos. This could also be a fun activity for the person suffering from dementia and the caretakers as they can spend quality time together through this application.
- CleverMind
This application includes some features specifically designed for dementia patients; this includes cognitive training tools such as games and puzzles to provide the patients with sufficient mental stimulation. Apart from that, this app also includes food and nutritional tools for medical information, which could be referred to from time to time by the person suffering from dementia as well as the caretaker.
These applications can make life for a caregiver just a little bit easier and the patient as well. Good luck!
Such a valuable post Rena!
Thank you!
There’s so many new and amazing things available today – I really hope stuff like this + more awareness + more research will start to turn the tide on Alzheimers before much longer.
I hoping with all these advancements a cure is in the not so distant future.
Wow. This is incredibly helpful information! My friend’s mother is in the beginning stages of dementia and I will share this post with her.
I wish her the best, I remember those awful beginning stages.
Fascinating. I’m thinking that one particular ap- My House Of Memories, might be something I’d do NOW for future use. So fascinating. Your work is so important.
It’s one of my favorites, thank you so much. That means a lot.
These are fabulous. What a great advancement to marry the disease with technology that can help all involved with their loved one.
The next step is a cure hopefully!
This post is a wonderful resource for anyone dealing with Alzheimers and dementia. So good to know. Thanks.
Thank you, I hope it helps as many people as possible.
I just love living in this day and age. So much available to us that never was (or was not so easily accessed). Great, informative post as usual, Rena.
Thank you so much, It’s a great time to be alive for sure.
Wow! I didn’t know any of these apps. They’re just incredible! And I thought I’ve built the ultimate mobile app 😉 xx Abby
They really are so useful, thank you fo the support.
I love this. Had no idea they existed and am so glad that there are people making tools to help. These are fantastic and I wish they’d been available for my dad.
It’s really great of them to make tools to make life easier, I wish it could have helped with your dad as well.
What solid and practical information. I wish I had known about some of these as my mom slipped away. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, I wish this had been available to make things easier for you as well.
This is a fantastic resource. I’m going to share it with my husband who volunteers at a hospice. This will be so helpful for some of his patients.
That’s a really great idea, I hope they help.
Hi Rena! Who knew? I had no idea that these apps were available. How great to be able to use them when in need. Thank you for sharing them. ~Kathy
They are amazing tools, thank you for the support.
This is such useful information!
I wish we lived closer to my FIL who now has dementia. He and my MIL are not great with their cell phones (even before he had dementia! My MIL doesn’t know anything about computers, either) so I don’t think they’d use these but boy, I wish they would.
If we lived closer I’d take the time to show them how to use these. They’d be perfect for them and for him. GREAT post, Rena! As always…
Thank you so much, that would be very hard to not really have much contact. That’s the hard part with the elderly, a lot of technology is a foreign concept to them.
My Mother had dementia. It was very hard for my sister and I to watch her decline. I am hoping my writing and doing games like Lumosity help…
I’m so sorry you had to go through that, I am always looking for ways to keep my brain active as well in hope to at least prolong this dreadful disease.
Love this, Rena! I had no idea there was so much available. Will be sharing this post with my readers. Great job!
Thank you so much for the support and the share.
This is a really great post! I never would have thought about using apps for this purpose. It is amazing what we can use technology for these days.
– Cait | http://www.prettyandfun.com
Thank you so much, it really amazing me how far technology has came.
I love the idea of using technology to help in valuable ways such as these, I read once in a New Scientist I think about someone developing a program to recognise when a person’s typing style changes which can show up early signs of dementia which are sometimes hard to recognise and go unnoticed as in the case with my mum.
That’s so true Katie! Anything that can help is greatly appreciated.