12-year-old Develops App To Communicate With Her Grandmother With Alzheimer’s

Emma Yang is a special girl. At the age of 12, she developed an app to communicate with her grandmother with Alzheimer’s. At this age she learned to become acquainted with something that millions of people in the world deal with every day.

Emma’s grandmother, who lives in Hong Kong, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago . Emma soon noticed that her grandmother started to forget more and more when she visited her or when they had contact over a distance.

Emma’s grandmother began to forget, among other things, how old she was and where she lived. Later still, it started to get very painful for Emma, ​​when her grandmother started confusing Emma with other family members.

It is not easy to deal with such situations. Being close to someone who has Alzheimer’s can affect you emotionally. It is difficult for the Alzheimer patient, their relatives and certainly also for children who are confronted with an Alzheimer patient.

The story of Emma Yang is special because of a special aspect. It’s something that not only helps her grandmother, but could benefit many other Alzheimer’s patients as well.

‘Timeless’: a mobile application for people with Alzheimer’s

Emma Yang’s greatest fear is that one day her grandmother will no longer recognize her  and that her precious relative’s memory will cease to exist. 

Sooner or later this moment will come. Emma’s grandmother will have less and less bright moments, where she is really present in the real world with her beloved relatives.

Alzheimer’s patients can react very intensely and positively to love and affection, but this is not enough for this special 12-year-old girl. Not wanting to leave her grandmother to her own devices and let her memories of her grandchild fade away, she goes above and beyond to preserve the special bond they have.

So to fight against this oblivion, Emma developed the mobile application ‘Timeless’ to keep special moments alive. It ensures that the most beautiful and most important memories can be immortalized.

An application for Alzheimer’s patients

Together with Dr. Melissa Kramps, a doctor who specializes in Alzheimer’s disease, Emma Yang developed a mobile application aimed at two specific purposes:

The first function is ‘updates’ and aims that Alzheimer patients can always be in touch with their relatives and friends. 

Their children, grandchildren, friends and other loved ones can connect with them through the app by sending videos and photos. The application then shows them who they are in contact with and what the bond is that they have together.

The other function is ‘identity’, a function that contains the family tree and important moments in their lives and keeps memories alive through, among other things, photos that are linked to it.

Thanks to the camera on their phone, they can then find out who someone is, just by pointing the camera at them.

An extra and both useful and interesting detail is the agenda and time function. The Alzheimer’s patient will receive a warning if he has called a friend or family member more than twice (to remind them that they have already called).

It can also send reminders of birthdays and special days such as Easter and Christmas to the patient.

A young child prodigy with a clear dream

Emma Yang has made an important contribution to the development of the mobile application. In addition to the professional guidance of Dr. Kramps, she could also count on financial support through a study grant.

Emma’s parents are computer scientists and work for a company specializing in facial recognition technology. Her passion for technology was therefore instilled in her at an early age. When Emma was just eight years old, she was already an expert at:

• HTML
• CSS web
• Java
• MIT App Creation

Her professional career has only just begun. Emma Yang has only one goal: to make the most of technology and virtual reality to help people with Alzheimer’s preserve their memory.

In the future, Emma’s strategy may be combined with other strategies to achieve her goal. Currently, the application is only useful for patients who can still work with a mobile phone.

The application ensures that the loss of cognitive skills is slowed down, but once the patient is in an advanced stage, he or she will need daily help from his or her family and friends and professional caregivers.