New App Helps People With Alzheimer's Recognize Their Loved Ones

Emma Yang, 14, is developing an app called Timeless designed to help people with Alzheimer's recognize their loved ones, reports Fast Company . Timeless lets users scroll through photos of friends and family, and it tells them who the person is and how they are related to the user with facial recognition. If the user does not recognize someone in the same room, they can take a picture and the app also will attempt to automatically identify them. Yang is working in collaboration with mentors at the tech company Kairos, which makes the facial recognition software that Timeless uses. Timeless also features a reminder screen that lists appointments for the day, along with a contacts screen that shows photos of family members along with names. A caregiver puts events on the daily calendar, and invites friends and relatives to send an initial set of photos that the facial recognition program can use to learn to identify them. "There are no apps on the market that really help people with Alzheimer's ... with their daily lives," Yang notes. "A lot of times people think that it's not going to help, or seniors can't really use technology, but in fact, if you strategically introduce it to them, it's actually a possibility and can really benefit their lives."