I wish this had come up on HN (or I had had that idea myself) some years ago when my mother suffered from that same cruel condition, for the last four years of her life. With her body, all her older memories and her considerable intelligence largely intact, she had multiple moments of clarity every single day, in which she fully realized the terrible and hopeless situation she was in. But of course, within seconds this thought and any decisions she might have derived from it dissolved in the black hole of her defective short-term memory. So she would not even have had the ability to take her own life to end this if she wished so.
My brother and I tried many things to improve her life somewhat, only very few of those were actually a bit succesful. Two of them were digital gadgets, which we selected to provide some benefit without or at least with just very simple interactions: The best one was an LCD "picture frame" the only feature of which was to show an infinite loop of family photos stored on its SD card - she came to really like it and have it switched on quite consistently. The second one was an MP3 speaker which had a few hours of her favorite music on an SD card as well, and which could be used largely like a radio, just by pressing its play/stop button and volume buttons. This latter one she managed to enjoy at least from time to time.
Best wishes to the author and his mom, and everyone in a similar situation.
MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
141–150 of 259 posts
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
That study is an interesting suggestion that there might be a physiological basis for the explicit / implicit distinction in terms of memory. Makes sense in many ways that some kind of memory might be embedded in the motor cortex. I wonder if the same is true for emotional memories and midbrain structures, as hinted at in your last paragraph. I always find those non-obvious connections fascinating, like the disorders…
I thought we discussed it here a few years ago but neither algolia nor DDG are giving me hits. I’m probably using the wrong search terms. I have a relative with anterograde amnesia from a stroke, so that story got passed on to my father when it happened. 8 years ago perhaps?
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#143This is one of the few HN articles that have profoundly moved me. Such a beautiful and simple use of technology to make a clear and big improvement in someone's life. As a side note on his mother remembering that the tablet exists, it sounds like she has amnesia quite like Henry Molaison, a famous case study in neuropathology. He had very specific brain damage that seemingly stopped him forming new memories in the sa…
> but studies showed that he could remember some things, just not consciously. This reminds me of muscle memory. I can play pieces on the piano even though I don't actively remember the sheet music of them. My hands just "know" what to do. Funnily enough the moment I start actively thinking about certain passages that ability worsens by a lot.
It's exactly the same when solving Rubik's Cubes.
At the start it's all about carrying around notes full of picking the relevant condition depending on the current permutation/state of the cube then following the step by step algorithms on which sequence of steps to perform for that condition.
Then you'll naturally realise that certain conditions happen a lot more than others and you'll start to remember the sequence of letters for each series of steps to perform.
Over time you'll forget the letters and your fingers will just know the sequence to perform when you perceive that condition, kind of like typing a password without thinking about it.
Eventually you'll be able to fit each condition and algorithm into your muscle memory and completely forget the series of letters that you used to memorise.
Now I can barely explain how to solve a rubik's cube in-person. I just do it.
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#144I love these kinds of projects. Congratulations to the OP. Unrelated, but does anyone know a good TV remote for elders? I'd like something like a Stream Deck with big buttons for things like : * Turn it on/off * Switch to TV channel 315 * Switch to TV channel 517 * Play Planet Earth on Netflix * Play Young Sheldon on Netflix My grandparents are 92 and 97 and even big remotes aren't cutting it. Not only that, but I'd…
Avoid toggling buttons. Have a separate button for on, and a second button for off. Idempotent all the way.
I remember my great aunt repeatedly mashing the on/off button insisting that the TV was not working, when it never had a chance to bring up the picture.
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#145>Since the physical device was satisfactory, the next step was writing a simple website that could drive the display. >A Compose page my siblings and I write messages and save them to be displayed. Is there a risk of a malicious actor discovering the website and writing in their own messages? I would think building user authentication in to the MomBoard website might be a bit heavyweight. Whats the best way to do thi…
When you have a site with a fixed, tiny amount of users, I'd opt for HTTP basic auth (via HTTPS). Whether you're using nginx, Traefik, Caddy, etc..., it's very easy to setup. If you're using something like Cloudflare Pages, I would guess you could setup a worker to handle it for you (though I'm not familiar enough with workers to be sure).
You're right; its easy enough with Cloudflare Workers. They have a sample that is pretty decent:
https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/examples/basic-aut...
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#146I love this. I wonder whether it would be useful to add a small indication of how roughly how long ago a message was written. For example, the first message might say 'this afternoon' or 'yesterday'. If it was written this afternoon, I know the dinner it's referring to is coming up, and wasn't yesterday.
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#147Really nice project. One idea for “if we fail to take down a message that no longer applies, it confuses her.” Put a start and end date/time on messages and implement in the board. That way you can pre schedule them and have them fall off automatically.
Would also be good to display the current date alongside the messages' date
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#148I have to deal with bouts with amnesia myself due to a dissociative disorder - this would be a really good appliance just to be able to see reminders to myself and also reminders from friends - relationships are really difficult to keep up with when its out of sight out of mind for anyone.
I'm working on a personal dashboard right now so I can have one space to leave notes for myself - I have the problem of not being able to consistently use the same tools since there are so many to reach out (social media, sms, chat apps, trello, physical notepads, .txt files). I frequently just fully forget that I've been taking notes every day, and where they're at. Building routines is, as one can imagine, really difficult. An app requires that I'm looking at my phone and can prioritize a notification. All the apps together are just too much to be able to prioritize, and I find myself hunting through all the apps for reminders or to try to ground myself.
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#149I encouraged my mother, who had short-term memory issues _and_ dementia to write things down. It backfired. She's write something down, like the fact that she got a call from her gardener, then obsess over it. She'd open the book over and over and then talk about the "odd" call she got from her gardener for weeks! We had to take the book and write things like "This issue has been resolved" under the things she wrote…
This is the kind of feedback I was looking for. These are not conditions that we are familiar with - and so the user interface for such things is not necesarily obvious. For example:
- I would expect that their and your mom did not forget how to use a web browser when they acquired short term memory issues. So a web browser interface (links, scrolling, buttons) might still be fine.
- I was surprised that in the posters' display, the date / time of each msg was not shown.
- I was susprised that there is no reminder "Mum, since an operation, you rarely form short term memories." Wouldn't it make sense that even that is not forming a memory?
- As you mention, remove the item or mention how it was resolved.
Re: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
#150I've been wanting to use an Inkplate 10 for my own mom, who doesn't have amnesia but is deaf. But, like the Boox that TFA uses, it has a 10" display which is too small imho. It would be great if they would finally start making bigger ones. 14" (A4 or letter size) is about as small as I'd want if I had my way.