Facebook dementia app created
pharmafile | April 29, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Alzheimer's, Facebook, app, dementia
Alzheimer’s Research UK has launched a new Facebook app which allows users to see what it is like to suffer from the effects of dementia.
Alzheimer’s UK says: “Like many other charities, we’ve developed a strong social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Storify – the list goes on as social media technologies develop.
“But we wanted to harness the power of Facebook to illustrate some of the symptoms experienced by the 820,000 people in the UK affected by dementia.”
The charity says that Facebook’s appeal is that it can gather your friends and family and keep them close. This includes memories in a digital space, such as photos and contacts, and documenting a chronology of a user’s thoughts via status updates.
The app takes over a person’s personal Facebook page and temporarily erases important memories, mimicking how dementia affects the brain.
Users can then watch their personal photographs, important details and status updates disappear before their eyes. The app does not delete them forever, and the information is returnable to the user after the experience.
People can also watch short videos featuring people affected by dementia explaining what impact the symptoms, simulated by the FaceDementia app, have had on them or their relative.
“We wanted to use these Facebook features to illustrate how those thoughts and memories can become confused, or forgotten altogether; as experienced by so many people living with dementia,” the charity explains.
“We worked with people affected by dementia and a web expert to develop a project that harnesses your recent Facebook activity with friends to simulate some of the symptoms of dementia that some people experience.”
Ben Adams
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