Timeless is a new app developed by a 14-year-old girl named Emma Yang designed to help people with Alzheimer’s cope better with appointments, social interactions and more, to ultimately improve and maintain their quality of life.
Ms. Yang was inspired to do something for Alzheimer’s patients when you witnessed the decline of cognitive function, especially memory, in her own grandmother. Timeless has several helpful functions which help the patient exercise their recognition skills which studies show slow down the deterioration of memory associated with this difficult disease. With 50 million people in the world today with Alzheimer’s, and the number predicted to rise to 130 million by the year 2050, this app, and similar ones, could prove to be highly popular.
Research shows that stimulating the memory and socializing are important strategies for the maintenance of cognitive functions. Looking at photos of loved ones, and staying in touch with them, can help slow down cognitive decline.
The app features Updates, A Day Planner, Photos, contacts and Identify.
- Updates is a feed of photos sent by friends and family. The facial recognition program in the app labels the photos with the names of those in the photos.
- The Day Planner gives a daily overview which includes the date, the weather, and the next appointment coming up. The goal is to help the person remember activities and appointments.
- Photos shows pictures sent by friends and family and are grouped by person according to facial recognition. It helps the person recognize faces of friends when they look at photos on a regular basis.
- Contacts helps the person remember phone numbers and other information associated with friends and family. All the person needs to do is tap on either ‘call’ or ‘text’ in order to contact someone. The app will remind the user if the person they want to call has already received a call from you less than five minutes ago.
- Identify is the key feature of the app. The user takes a picture of the person, and then the app will use facial recognition to recognize the person.
The caregiver manages the app by adding events and other information and invites the person’s friends and relatives to join his timeless circle.
The app is still under development, but when it finally reaches the public it will be a unique app helping people cope with this growing illness.
