Gran’s £3,000 app to help dementia patients
A grandmother has created an app which could help dementia patients.
Heather Mead, a part- time receptionist in a care home was inspired by her work to create a game for the residents.
The 57-year-old, of William Shipley House, Knightrider Court in Maidstone, has so far spent more than £3,000 developing the Retro Fish Game which is aimed at boosting players’ cognitive skills. The grandmother-of-four, who is also studying for a degree in health and social care from the Open University, started by asking lecturers for advice in August. By December she had managed to get an app developer on board and the design work began. Now it is available to download and play. Users are tasked with tracking different fish as they swim across the screen and tapping on them before they reach the other side. After every fifth fish the game speeds up to test the participant’s reaction time. It is believed the simple exercise will help elderly people and those living with dementia by working their mind, improving their perception and memory and helping to focus attention. Mrs Mead said she first thought of the concept when staff were being given a demonstration of a digital sensory table.
She said: “The people giving the demonstration were saying that it wasn’t really aimed at elderly people and instead was focused towards children.
“We got to talking about apps for those with dementia and I decided to do some research and although there are games available for cognitive help they aren’t specifically for that audience. “So I came up with the idea of the fish game. “My original thought was one based on horse racing but I am funding the project myself and the graphics were very expensive to create.”
However the mother-of-three is already working towards five other projects which will make up the retro series, these include one about racing, a sorting activity and a dice-themed game.