Family experience of dementia leads to launch of groundbreaking app

The experience of having both of her grandmothers living with dementia was the catalyst for Ballycumber law graduate Niamh Murray to set up a groundbreaking app to aid communication between carers, loved ones and those living with dementia through the use of reminiscence therapy.

However, it was only when Niamh met and became friends with a fellow law and business student in University College Cork, Amy Boyden from Cork, and discovered that her grandmother had also suffered with dementia, that the two enterprising friends began discussing the issue and carrying out research into the use of technology to assist those suffering from the complex condition.

The two students developed an app called ForgetMeNot which was launched last month and features three main tools; photos, music and voice recordings. These features provide a simple means for families to practice reminiscence therapy, which involves using the senses to help those with dementia remember events, people and places for their past lives.

Niamh Murray mentions how her grandmother Kitty loves to recall her past life by looking at photographs and also enjoys singing, while her late grandmother, Margaret, also loved to look at photographs from her childhood and used to sing songs from her childhood, despite both of them being diagnosed with dementia.

“In the later stages of my grandmother Margaret’s illness, I used to sing to her as a means of communicating and even though she didn’t know my name or what my relationship to her was,” says Niamh, “and I particularly remember how she used to sing along with me to a song called ‘The Town I Left Behind’ which is about Banagher where she grew up."

Niamh says that watching her grandmother smile and singing along with her was something she will “cherish forever”.

Niamh and her co-founder of the ForgetMeNot app, Amy, quickly realised the importance of a practice they had been doing with their loved ones for a number of years once they started discussing the fact that their grandmothers had suffered with dementia. Having seen first-hand the benefit of reminiscence therapy, the duo wanted to create an easily accessible method for others to connect with their loved ones.

“Like the ForgetMeNot flower, we believe that, with the help of others, a person with Dementia can prosper and grow and we look forward to seeing the positive impact the app will make in the field of dementia care,” says Niamh. The app allows family members and carers to all interact with the one profile. ForgetMeNot will provide a unique family code which can be shared with family members, loved ones, and carers to allow each user to access this digital memory book. The app allows families and carers to use moments of the past to have conversations in the present.

“Communication is such an important thing for someone with Dementia to feel a sense of self, boost mood, and slow down cognitive decline,” says Niamh Murray, who is hoping that the ForgetMeNot app will reach as many of those affected by dementia as possible over the coming months.

The ForgetMeNot app is available on Google Play at the moment and will be available for IOS over the next few months.