MemoryAid, a phone-like device for dementia care, has shown positive trial results and is due to launch to the public this year.
Developed by a team from Western Sydney University and Deakin University, the home assistance device resembles a traditional telephone and is designed to help people living with dementia maintain their independence for as long as possible.
A brightly coloured handset rests on top of the device, allowing users to simply pick it up when it rings, a familiar action practised over a lifetime.
It can be used for video calls with loved ones as well as prompts and reminders for daily routines.
Celia Harris is associate professor at Western Sydney University’s MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development and project lead.
Harris said: “The idea for MemoryAid was to imagine new kinds of technologies that are empowering and intuitive for people with dementia and other older people; it’s a digital device that you can use to keep in touch with loved ones via video calls and receive prompts and reminders for daily routines, but you use it like a familiar handset phone.
“When it rings, you pick it up, and everything works from there. You just look at it, and you know what to do with it, using skills you’ve practiced over a lifetime.
“What’s exciting about seeing people use MemoryAid at home is that they use it in completely different ways, for different things, depending on what is most important to them.
“It might be as mundane as support with drinking enough water, but also reminders for picking up the grandchildren, doing some exercise, or setting up one-off appointments day-to-day.
“We wanted MemoryAid to be flexible enough so that people can choose what they use it for, based on what matters most to them, rather than us deciding that for them.”
Designed by experts and developed with an advisory group of people with lived experience, the device has received positive feedback during trials.
Richard, a 65-year-old man from Sydney who has been living with younger-onset dementia since 2020, said using MemoryAid has given him a new sense of routine, supporting his day-to-day life and his ability to go out in the community.
He said: “Genuinely, for me, the device has been the best thing since baked bread – it’s been so good for my independence.
“MemoryAid reminds me to do basic things like take my pills, which is really important because I was missing three or four days of pills a week. Not once in the whole time of having the device have I forgotten my pills.
“I’ve always had an analytical brain and been able to sort things out.
“But since the dementia, it’s almost like the connections have been severed. MemoryAid has helped me to put those connections back again and it makes a huge difference. It’s offering a routine, and it’s clarifying that routine. It provides a sense of wellbeing because I am doing what I am meant to be doing.”
The device is currently a finalist for the Longitude Prize on Dementia, a global prize funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK and delivered by Challenge Works to support assistive technologies using AI and machine learning for people living with dementia.
