Medication, remembering appointments or tasks, staying safe in the community and keeping in touch with family are common challenges with older people. But what do you do when that person also has dementia or mild cognitive impairment?
Angela Edwards in Dunedin is using her 14 years of London-based experience in IT, design and accessibility to develop Elli Cares, the only app of its kind in the world for people with early to mid-stages of dementia and their caregivers.
It’s based on three key functions – reminders, safe zones and daily management.
“Reminders will cover things like medication, doctors’ visits, social gatherings, walking the dog, paying bills, and a notification to connected family members or caregivers if it goes unanswered for more than an hour,” says Edwards.
“Ensuring medication is taken at the right time is critical, so users will receive a pop-up reminder on their phone which will include a picture of the medication."
“We’re also about to release video recorded reminders which can be used for anything from a reminder to Mum to take her medication through to how to use the TV remote so she can watch her favourite programme."
“The family or caregiver can set up safe zones for frequently visited areas with an alert if the person moves outside these areas. That alert will include notifications with support and directions for returning to a safe zone,” says Edwards.
The app will also show how well the person is managing their daily life from taking medications at the right time through to identifying activity happening outside usual times.
A behavioural monitoring feature is coming later this year. This will look at how a person interacts with their device and when to build a pattern. “If Mum looks at her phone around 7am every day when she wakes but it’s 9am, this is unusual behaviour and we will check in on her. If there’s no response, we can notify the family/care partner”
While Edwards is not a fan of social media because of the negativity associated with it, she says she “loves using technology in way you don’t even realise it’s there. It should help without interfering in our lives.”
Australian co-founder Paul Nichols had an idea for the app but it wasn’t moving in the way he wanted. Edwards took over and began the job of getting it into development and out into the public arena. She launched a beta version in August 2023 and a public version in March 2024, working with people with dementia or cognitive impairment and their caregivers to help build the app.
That work has paid off with an equal first place in the consumer category of the Australia/New Zealand Future of Ageing Awards, and a recent experience in Spain called ‘Walking the talk with dementia.
“This brought over 70 participants from over 25 nationalities, including individuals with dementia, together to walk 40km of the Camino de Santiago trail in northern Spain. We followed this with a two-day seminar with participants from researchers, academics, the World Health Organisation, and dementia groups.
“We’re now ready to pilot the app in New Zealand with a focus group of around 50 people and will follow that with a move into New Zealand’s 70,000-strong dementia community.”
Her work has won support from the Roddenberry Foundation – inspired by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry – Callaghan Innovation and the Selwyn Foundation. She’s also been talking with Dementia New Zealand and Alzheimers New Zealand and is in regular contact with aged care organisations around the world.
“Elli Cares will remove a lot of the burden on a partner or caregiver, enabling the person to live as independently as possible for as long as possible because we know that this approach slows advance of the disease,” says Edwards.
Edwards is now looking for funding to build an interface with aged care providers whether in independent retirement living villages or home-based care. New features will include Safe Track – behavioural monitoring through motion detection; Care Team – enabling multiple users within the team; video recorded reminders and, by early 2025, a te reo Māori version. She’s also planning to return 20 per cent of profits to the community.
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