Amazon Echo may confuse dementia patients

I read with interest your news story in Issue 510 (page 8) about pensioners in social care getting reminders to take medication through Amazon Echo. It’s an innovative idea but it could founder on a number of rocks. Firstly, it assumes that a wireless network is available. Secondly, it assumes that the recipient can hear the message, can understand it, doesn’t suffer from short-term memory loss, and actually acts upon the message.

My mother has late-onset dementia, wants to remain in her home, and lives 100 miles away from me. She is also very hard of hearing. She has to be reminded by phone twice a day to put her eyedrops in. The value of this personal call is that I can ask her to confirm that she’s done it.

I developed a cheaper equivalent of the Echo, using an old smartphone, a speaking-alarm app and a £7 Bluetooth

speaker. Though this worked well, the problem was my mother’s dementia. She had trouble grasping the concept of a disembodied voice (mine) giving instructions, and couldn’t be relied upon to remember what was said. This meant a follow-up call, which increased the chances of her double-dosing on her drops.

I think the Echo reminders are a good idea as long as the recipient is able to grasp what is happening, but it is possible reproduce the same effect at a fraction of the price. Dave Burns