RK Alzheimer's App

Before RK launched, I had made an app for families who had a member living with Alzheimer's. It was a very social app that had 3 parts.

First called family, where friends, family and loved ones are together being able to share their feelings with one another (text/video/sound), see their activity, mood, and organize events between them (e.g., birthday, dinner).


The second were activities like the RK active tasks, including a memory test (games), personal journal, random questions about the Alzheimer's patient's feelings/daily life and shared it with their loved ones. (i.e., Data collected important to detect early signs and symptoms of the disease inside family circle).


And the third part called community connected the patient to others in the study where people can be supportive of one another through the app or through in person meet ups. I'm trying to figure out what components would be helpful to the most researchers that I should build on the RK platform.


Would love to get some feedback before I start working on this!


Thank you!

Replies

An app for Alzheimer’s (AD) patients and their families/caregivers is much needed. For caregivers, an app that can differentiate the stages of the disease (into mild, moderate, and severe) can help them cope, and plan care by understanding how AD changes their loved ones. The three main challenges that someone caring for AD may face are changes in communications skills, changes in personality and behavior, and changes in intimacy and sexuality. Changes and management of these challenges can perhaps also help the research community track and/or delay the onset of the disease on a cognitive level. From the patient’s perspective, an app that can help improve their quality of life, memory function, offer driving and home safety tips, reminders to take medicines, and tips for staying active and healthy, are beneficial. For both patients and caregivers, an app that connects them with their peers, local and national support groups, and community resources can be extremely valuable. For more information, see Caring for a Person with Alzheimer’s disease: Your Easy-to-Use Guide from the National Institutes on Aging, available at https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/caring-person-alzheimers-disease/about-guide


For aging researchers, it would be very cool to gain a life-course perspective on AD by studying it in the context of four levels: environmental, sociocultural, behavioral, and biological.


We welcome your thoughts and suggestions as we brainstorm ideas for RK.