Helping Elders Remember

Trellis is a product I’m creating to improve the lives of elders and families living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. This idea stems from insights I had when my father was living with Alzheimer’s. While great progress is being made toward a cure, the number of people with these diseases is still projected to increase dramatically in the coming years. This will mean a growing need for thoughtful solutions to problems these families face every day.

Creating a technology that works for people experiencing cognitive decline is a formidable and compelling design challenge so there will be many cycles of testing and refinement in the coming months.

Disciplines

User Research, Domain Research, Business Strategy, Information Design, Experience Design, Visual Design, Project Management, Implementation Support

For Elders: A Radically Simple Tablet Appliance That Will…

Provide a supportive scaffold or “trellis” for their most important memories, like the names and relationships of the people around them and key events throughout their life.
Alleviate confusion and fear about their current circumstances, like their living situation, place, time, etc.
Remind them about their current responsibilities like medications and personal care.
Help them remember and look forward to upcoming events like birthdays and family visits.

For Family and Caregivers: A Web Application That Will…

Guide these users through the process of providing photos, facts, dates and reminders for the elder.
Integrate with common social media, messaging and EHR systems to aid in content creation, and enable data integration, notifications and more.

A Business That Will…

Offer an indispensable tool that achieves broad adoption among Alzheimer’s families around the world.
Work closely with customers to continually improve the service.
Direct as much profit as possible to the the most aggressive and promising efforts to cure these diseases. Trellis will be a helpful technology that works behind the scenes to make itself obsolete in the long term.

To learn more about this project or share your thoughts, please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.