13 ms·

What software will you trust when you get senile?

148 points by acutesoftware 8y ago

downer52 8y ago
Everything is wrong with this blog post.
flareback 8y ago
If I'm senile I'll probably trust all software.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  Or you'll be demanding that the toaster tells you the weather.
  - dkarl 8y ago
    It will by then.
    - Verdex 8y ago
      It will by NOW: http://toasteroid.com/ http://toasteroid.com/ > The toasteroid app, on the other hand, has several features you can enjoy. This is needed to be downloaded in order to work the toasteroid product. There’s a weather news here where you can check the status of the weather daily. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid-first-app-controlled-smart-image-toaste https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid-fi...
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        They just missed their "adjustable brownness dial" stretch goal! Oh, what a fickle lot millenials are!
    - ahje 8y ago
      NetBSD has been running on toasters since 2005. It's just a matter of porting some kind of PI software to it.
  - DoctorOetker 8y ago
    I wasn't present, but when my step-brother went to visit his grandmother who was still living (alone) at her home and always prepared meals for visits one time they arrived just in time to stop her from pouring frying oil in the toaster (in order to bake "french" fries), as she confused the toaster for the fryer...
  - beat 8y ago
    The way things are going, the toaster will be able to answer you with a weather report.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      The toaster will make the weather you ask it to make.
  - Adamantcheese 8y ago
    I want my toaster to burn the weather onto my toast.
aboutruby 8y ago
I think Apple and Google products as they are the simplest without dark patterns.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  Huh? Isn't Google all about "dark patterns"?
- mvandenb 8y ago
  well if you include facebook in that group, they already know everything about you and can fill in any gaps that you've lost.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    "I see your seventh grade boyfriend's wife just died, maybe you two should reconnect?"
Numberwang 8y ago
RealPlayer
SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
Honestly, a google home or something similar seems to be the right way to go - while it's not "secure", it's incredibly intuitive, can't be misplaced, and has most of the functionality you'll need, and I imagine as time passes it'll develop a lot of the rest.
- notahacker 8y ago
  The elderly are certainly the natural use case for voice interfaces and IoT services, since they're a group of people that often find basic household tasks and using a GUI and handheld interface genuinely difficult. I think there's an enormous market there for the right products. But I suspect the mobility-impaired and the lonely-and-bored are more easily served than those with declining cognitive functions. Once people have reached the stage where they're starting to not recognise people or remember what year it is, [re]discovering a disembodied voice in their living room that sometimes answers questions intelligibly and/or does what they ask of it could be a bit disturbing. The UX problem is much harder than simply ensuring the service doesn't make buggy recommendations, and not an easy one to test.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    > Once people have reached the stage where they're starting to not recognise people or remember what year it is, [re]discovering a disembodied voice in their living room that sometimes answers questions intelligibly and/or does what they ask of it could be a bit disturbing. On the other hand, there are people who exist now who will, in old age, have had helpful (but occasionally stupid) disembodied computer voices around since childhood.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Yeah, I was framing it in my mind as helping my own senility. There's not a lot of helping the tech illiterate current elderly - even google home requires a little bit of mental framing as far as commands are concerned.
    - notahacker 8y ago
mrob 8y ago
I think something like MS-DOS. A CLI is good, because it gives you a record of what happened, but Unix-style shells are packed with foot-guns as documented in the Unix-Hater's Handbook[0]. Even with a healthy mind I've lost data to incorrect quoting. MS-DOS is simpler. Lack of multitasking helps too. [0] https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh-download.html https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh-download.html
- RankingMember 8y ago
  This handbook expresses so many things I've felt, I'm surprised I've never come across it before.
PaulHoule 8y ago
See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/?ref_=ttnw_hd https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/?ref_=ttnw_hd I would not at all agree that "today's old people aren't fluent with technology." My Aunt Lucy in a nursing home just got a phone, she thinks Facebook is just great so she keep track of what the rest of the family is doing. Those "chumboxes" on the internet play to the fears and biases of the old and you'd better believe somebody clicks on them. Back in 2001 I went to Carthage, NY to learn how to drive draft horses and all of the old ladies were sitting at a cafe and talking about "AOL" and "Instant Messenger" and "Netscape" and all of that.
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  the elderly that we meet in public life might not be representative of the elderly in general...
- sigi45 8y ago
  Not even our current youth is fluent in technology. Clicking on a webbrowser and connecting to WiFi is not hard. Still have to help people younger and older than me. There are non user, user and user who actually know what they use.
  - kungtotte 8y ago
    Anecdotally I prefer helping my grandma's generation (she's 80) than my peers and younger (35). My grandma knows she doesn't know anything. She won't do anything she's unsure of, won't click any link or button without getting my advice first, won't install stupid shit because she doesn't know how and even if she did she's not confident enough to do it on her own. The worst that she could ever do is fatfinger something with her crummy arthritis fingers and I have to take a 15 minute drive to her place and spend another 15 minutes fixing it. People that are my age or younger though? They'll click anything on Facebook and share their information everywhere, will download anything and install it without second thoughts. Their devices are the digital equivalent to Typhoid Mary. Since they think they know stuff, they'll click through dozens of links and dialog popups so even getting them to answer the question "So what did you do?" is a monumental ask, much less fixing the issues they've caused.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
skybrian 8y ago
This is an important and difficult problem to think about. It's great that the author is making the effort. However, the article doesn't mention any caregivers. If you instead assume that there are caregivers involved, how would the assumptions about what software is useful change?
- notahacker 8y ago
  Assuming the caregiver is a trusted party who can learn to check whether patients have actually responded to the software's recommendations and also do basic configuration work, it potentially makes it a lot easier. It also opens up a different problem which software can also play a role in: non-intrusively monitoring the elderly person when the caregiver is away so the caregiver can ask relevant questions and take relevant steps to help.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  Caregivers are great, but I think you need to be pretty far in before your family figures it out and gets that kind of thing setup. I don't think it's reasonable for a person with dementia to schedule and manage their own care giving staff, there really needs to be a very competent person double checking their work and making sure they are doing their job adequately.
- acutesoftware 8y ago
  Author here - having caregivers certainly changes it, but I was focusing on a possible technical solution in addition to caregivers. It would still be nice to have some impartial device tell you or confirm that what is going on, is actually going on.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    One thing to consider is that at the point when it becomes difficult to do everything on your own, family or caregivers or whoever is helping you need to understand whatever devices you're using and help you use them. Maybe privacy becomes impractical and other considerations like good record keeping become more important.
subjectsigma 8y ago
Why an app? Friends and family should be making these decisions and helping out. There's no need for a technological solution. I get life isn't perfect and neither are people, but that means software isn't either.
- jarvuschris 8y ago
  Ideally an app could be a big _help_ to friends and family (assuming someone has those). I'm surprised the author didn't get into this question at all, they sort of touched on the app being an alternative to friends and family controlling your life, but if folks are helping you manager you affairs they'd need to be able to influence the app too. For example, what if you need to start living in a new location afterwards? It makes sense that you would need to build trust with the app on your own ahead of time (or maybe just with apps in general), but folks helping manage your affairs will need access to do things like update your "fences" To your point though -- there is a need for a technological solution. Friends and family should be helping make the decision "grandpa shouldn't being leaving this geofence between 8pm and 6am". After than, watching grandpa all night every night, trying to talk to him first when he starts wandering, having to find out and go find him when he does...these are all things where a technology solution CAN offer huge help and relief to the friends and family
- beat 8y ago
  Just how much are friends and family expected to attend to someone whose mind is in decline? My grandfather had Alzheimer's. We attended to him more and more as he got worse and worse. But one day, he went down to the basement while grandma was napping, and was doing something that involved a chunk of wood and a piece of pipe in a vise, heating it with a torch while beating on it with a hammer. Luckily, it just set off the smoke alarms and the fire department came. He could have burned the house down with him and grandma in it. That's what happens when you leave someone with Alzheimer's unsupervised for a few minutes. If software can help when they aren't being actively supervised, I'm all for it.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  It's painful to admit, but many of those people may have passed away already. In my own experience with my own relatives, they have all been in their nineties and in many cases their children had already passed away or moved out of state. Many friends are near the same age and have fallen out of touch, etc.
mettamage 8y ago
I think this is a very important question. The amount of elderly people is about to rise. Also, in The Netherlands (where I live) at least, it's a fairly wealthy group of the population. I see a business opportunity that is worth it from a societal and financial perspective.
projectramo 8y ago
I think the crucial point is you have to develop the habit before the disease sets in. I’ve found the Apple Watch works well because I can set reminders in the watch for someone with memory issues and they already have the habit of looking at their watch. Similarly it would be useful to be able to print something that looks like a newspaper with today’s agenda because they have the habit of reading news. They tend to trust everything so the main hygiene is having a trusted person running the show.
- nixpulvis 8y ago
  Have fun with the updates then...
lenticular 8y ago
I installed Ubuntu on the PC of an elderly relative in mental decline who kept downloading malicious software. It's worked quite well. She just needs a browser and has no reason to use the terminal or anything.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago
  That was mostly the reasoning me for me doing the same for my mom and dad. 7-8 years later, there hasn't been any bad things happening, aside from a "Microsoft support" website that wouldn't go away.
- beat 8y ago
  I gave my mother a Chromebook for the same reason. I'd given her a Windows machine before, and she was constantly calling because she'd click on whatever random toxic shit promised her something for free or warned her of dire consequences or whatever, so her machine was basically a cesspool. Since she got a Chromebook, I haven't had to do any tech support. Win!
jarvuschris 8y ago
I'm not so sure about the point that the software would need to not change. This will be really interesting to see play out as digital natives age. One school of thought is that we've learned a new generation of things, another school of thought is that what we've learned is the skill of coping with constant/rapid change. So would an app UI changing throw off a mentally declining digital native? Or would they just relive the same excitement every day that their app got an update and has a whole new UI. As futurist Alvin Toffler said: > The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  My grandmother (96) suffers from dementia but consistently recognizes me. My visual appearance has changed but it seems like if it's slow and gradual enough, it would be okay. In my opinion, the ability to learn is one of the skills that is hit hard by dementia. The inability to string moments together and view them as a whole makes learning something new a real challenge and the longer it takes to do the thing, the more likely it is that it will simply be un-learnable.
chrisco255 8y ago
vim...since I'll still be trying to figure out how to exit it.
- jraph 8y ago
  A nice seclusion room!
Iwan-Zotow 8y ago
If I'll become senile I'll trust each and every piece of software
clort 8y ago
I think the future could be radically different from what we see now, depending on technological advances. 'Phones' with 'Apps' is one thing, but a genuinely smart system which could have tendrils into your phone, your watch, in your robot helper, or just being aware of what you do around the house and have a voice would be a game changer for old people and certainly I would expect things to go that way in the next 30 years. I saw a film a few years ago, 'Robot and Frank' which was set in the near future where such systems were becoming available. Frank would have perhaps been 40-50 now and while he had used technology he was not comfortable with the robot his son got him. At least this film educated my partner about the possibilities of such systems and/or software without being too fantastical (Robot is a little clunky, compared to Ava from Ex Machina)
ilamont 8y ago
There's a movie that touches on this very topic and references many of the requirements listed in TFA. It's quite good: "Robot & Frank" (2012) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/
ALittleLight 8y ago
I've thought about this recently. My grandfather has been struggling with some senility like problems. He tends to leave his house in an attempt to "go home" and wander off somewhere and then suddenly realize he's in the middle of nowhere and doesn't know how to get home. When I think about developing such conditions myself it doesn't seem like it would be as much of a problem for me. If I suddenly came to cognition in the middle of nowhere with no idea where I was I'd immediately use my phone and Google maps to find the way back or Uber if it was far away. Likewise, if I found myself in an unfamiliar place and had a compulsion to "go home" I assume I'd try to use Google maps to find my home, and when it pointed to my current location I might dig into my recent photos and notes to discover messages to myself that I actually do live here and have been having memory problems and what I should do is sit in a chair and wait for a bit. I hope the advance in technology and the extent to which my phone is part of my life and mind will make me more resilient to some of the harms of old age.
- sixstringtheory 8y ago
  That’s all assuming you brought your device with you in your stupor. It could be an even greater shock when you come to and realize you don’t have the thing you’re hopelessly reliant on!
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    This could become a major use-case for wearables as more tech-reliant generations age. Before Google ruined the UI, putting on my smart watch was part of getting dressed and I felt weird without it on.
- randcraw 8y ago
  From what I've seen, once you reach your grandfather's age, you too will have the same problem he does -- the inability to reason your way out of the problem. My father has reached a similar state of mind recently, and I'm not at all sure how to address it and fill the void it created, especially since he never was very fluent with tech (computers or cell phones), and he lives alone. Ten years ago your grandfather would have done what anyone without a GPS does -- he'd retrace his steps, or bring a map, or ask someone how to get home. But the problem now is that these things don't occur to him; his mind is no longer self sufficient; he's confused. I think the only tech solution is for him to be able to speak aloud, "Take me home", and hopefully there's a device in his hand (or strapped to his arm) that understands his words and can tell him exactly what to do. Or it can send a message to a rescue team which comes to get him. At some point in life, when your mind is no longer able to think rationally, I believe your digital assistant will have to take charge completely -- listening to your voice and telling you exactly what to do or calling help for you. Hoping to restore lost cognitive skills via the right kind of device or app is not a plan that scales well with a declining mind.
hnruss 8y ago
I wonder if it will even be a problem for me? I've spent my whole life learning how to create and use new interfaces, so hopefully I'll retain the ability to do so as I age? Or maybe AI will have advanced so much that it understands even my most incoherent request?
- ridgeguy 8y ago
  I think your facility in creating/using new interfaces won't be much of a protective factor. I think your being, say, less than 35 years old at the moment would be much more important. By the time you're 65+, there's a reasonable chance there will be effective, affordable treatments.
howard941 8y ago
I won't trust anything other than my own fears at the moment and nothing will convince me otherwise at that point. Dementia ruins everything.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  > Dementia ruins everything. I like to think that it makes everything a lot more interesting. Just like I like to think that, if I ever found myself falling through the atmosphere for some reason beyond my control, I would enjoy skydiving once before I die, since I would never jump out of a perfectly good plane. I'm sure I'm wrong in both cases, but I'm perfectly happy being an eternal optimist right now.
RegBarclay 8y ago
My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last month. He's had symptoms for a couple of years, but as an engineer with a pretty high cognitive reserve he compensated with systems, rituals, and routines, but, mostly, paper systems. In the 30 years since my grandmother died from Alzheimer's, we haven't made much progress on treatment. I'm now looking ahead about 30 years to the age when my father and his mother both experienced the onset of symptoms and I'm thinking about how I might compensate, keep myself aware of my condition, and remain functional for longer. As a software developer who already relies heavily on software systems to keep life organized, I expect software will play a large role for me. I believe there's already a market for technology widgets for cognitively impaired people. Dad still likes to surf the internet to read the news and do research about his condition. It would be handy if I could sandbox him a little. Is there a way to rig a browser so a user can't buy anything online? That would be handy. As wearable tech -- and in 30 years perhaps implantable tech -- advances, I can envision many devices and software aids for those with cognitive decline. Would be nice, though, if I didn't need any of that because the next 30 years yields an effective treatment or cure.
- gpm 8y ago
  > Is there a way to rig a browser so a user can't buy anything online? That would be handy. Lack of credit card? Maybe just carefully removing the cvv code from cards?
  - RegBarclay 8y ago
    That's the real answer -- take his cards away. But it's just not time yet. I wonder if there's a card that can't be used online? Hey, dad, your new credit card came in. I've already learned that one of the realities of being the dementia victim's business manager is that you have to lie to them convincingly. It's for their own good, but it feels wrong anyway.
    - nowarninglabel 8y ago
      There's actually a great company that has a solution/card for this: https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/ https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/
adamtj 8y ago
Probably all of it.
samat 8y ago
Reminded me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand
thinkling 8y ago
I'm more interested in the lead-in period before one is senile but when the brain (memory in particular) isn't what it used to be. I'd love sidekick software that helps remember things and can be queried very quickly and easily.
drskaugen 8y ago
If you were old and senile, your Auntie who called would be ancient.. And BTW some older people use lots of apps, I probably have more than 100 on my iPhone. But I can't remember what they are for.. (Just kidding ..)
- Forbo 8y ago
  I realize you're probably joking, but it's possible (common, even?) to have an aunt/uncle who is younger than you.
crucialfelix 8y ago
I've just spent three days with my mother. She is in a care home. She has Alzheimer's, a cat and a laptop. She's pretty sharp still but sinking. The laptop throws up some warning screen on bootup about the power adapter and recommends to go into BIOS to stop the warning. I wrote out the instructions: just ignore and click continue. She's locked on that screen obsessing. Anyway she doesn't have the password, so the computer is useless. She can't stop trying though. She's shamed by not being able to use it. If she could get in then the frustrations would only increase. The cat is great though. Planning tech for Alzheimer's is like designing UI for people on acid. You have no idea how confusing things can get and how silly your interface and assumptions are.
- existencebox 8y ago
  My grandmother spent the last years of her life deep in the fog of Alzheimers. Unfortunately, I can't imagine any level of tech beyond the _most basic_ supervisory and assistive care would have helped in her case. (She thought, and had many violent incidents as a result of thinking, that I was her dead husband, among other things) My only silver lining is that she was too far gone to feel any of that frustration. She lived in a different world from the rest of us near the end. I say this because your last sentence stuck with me in that context. I'd say it's even harder than acid, the fundamental precepts of how your brain functions have begun to break down, and my focus, at least with preparing myself philosophically for this path and in brainstorming assistive capabilities, is on ways to integrate tech "invisibly." Even the most basic things, better monitoring for incidents, the ability to detect the need for assisted care before it became urgent, mechanisms to bridge gaps caused by the loss of individual competence without requiring new skill sets and learning. I was only a child when I was exposed to the bulk of this, so sincere apologies if any of the above seems to come from a weird point of view, I realize it can be a sensitive subject.
  - crucialfelix 8y ago
    Higher doses of acid and bad trips result in intense pattern transfer. In my youth I've had the ink boil off the page as I wrote, confusion as to how many people I am, and one time I couldn't understand cause and effect for a few hours. There really is no UI for people that don't comprehend the arrow of causality. There is a woman at my mother's home. She had run a company, now she's in an advanced stage of AD. She wanted to pitch an idea to me to see if I would go into business with her. It was something that went around and around and around and it looks at you. Eventually I figured out that she had been looking at a rainbow windmill on the balcony and had transferred that into some cosmic invention. Her other idea was for a place where people could meet to work on ideas and build electronics. Especially for young women. That's a makerspace ! I found one in high Wycombe and considered contacting them to see if any women makers wanted to visit this fascinating old woman.
jacknews 8y ago
IMHO, today's software (particularly on mobile) is barely usable for adults, so the best software for young children and the very old is no software.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
acutesoftware 8y ago
If anyone has any links to existing products, or organisations looking at this stuff let please post details here (or email me) and I'll update the references on the blog post. I didn't find much at all in terms of software, but we need to at least try some things. I made a start a few years ago - just a shell really to try and work out the requirements in my head https://github.com/acutesoftware/acute-experiments/tree/master/ITNOBAM https://github.com/acutesoftware/acute-experiments/tree/mast... If you want to contribute, or share any code you've done I think you should. It would nice if we could work together on this.
nwatson 8y ago
I'll trust some beautiful fem-robot that says she likes me for who I am and that I make her laugh and tells me how lucky my late wife was and that no she needs the bank account details just so she can wire the car down payment I've been taking about to my granddaughter and how she's sure my daughter wants power of attorney to get control and feed a fentanyl habit and that yes even though I've had two heart attacks a trip to Bali would do me good. I'm f*cked.
jonstewart 8y ago
The same as Ken Thompson, that which I write entirely myself, senility be damned.
Haga 8y ago
They will fish for us senile with emulated win xp or console popups
jrnichols 8y ago
One of the things I worry about is the web itself. I've had more experiences with elderly folks being confused by deceptive advertising and intrusive advertising than anything. Pop up ads, auto-playing videos, etc. To me, the internet trash of advertising is more of a roadblock to the elderly/senile.

148 points by acutesoftware 8y ago

downer52 8y ago

Everything is wrong with this blog post.

flareback 8y ago

If I'm senile I'll probably trust all software.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
Or you'll be demanding that the toaster tells you the weather.
- dkarl 8y ago
  It will by then.
  - Verdex 8y ago
    It will by NOW: http://toasteroid.com/ http://toasteroid.com/ > The toasteroid app, on the other hand, has several features you can enjoy. This is needed to be downloaded in order to work the toasteroid product. There’s a weather news here where you can check the status of the weather daily. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid-first-app-controlled-smart-image-toaste https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid-fi...
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      They just missed their "adjustable brownness dial" stretch goal! Oh, what a fickle lot millenials are!
  - ahje 8y ago
    NetBSD has been running on toasters since 2005. It's just a matter of porting some kind of PI software to it.
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  I wasn't present, but when my step-brother went to visit his grandmother who was still living (alone) at her home and always prepared meals for visits one time they arrived just in time to stop her from pouring frying oil in the toaster (in order to bake "french" fries), as she confused the toaster for the fryer...
- beat 8y ago
  The way things are going, the toaster will be able to answer you with a weather report.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    The toaster will make the weather you ask it to make.
- Adamantcheese 8y ago
  I want my toaster to burn the weather onto my toast.

aboutruby 8y ago

I think Apple and Google products as they are the simplest without dark patterns.

PaulHoule 8y ago
Huh? Isn't Google all about "dark patterns"?
mvandenb 8y ago
well if you include facebook in that group, they already know everything about you and can fill in any gaps that you've lost.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  "I see your seventh grade boyfriend's wife just died, maybe you two should reconnect?"

Numberwang 8y ago

RealPlayer

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

Honestly, a google home or something similar seems to be the right way to go - while it's not "secure", it's incredibly intuitive, can't be misplaced, and has most of the functionality you'll need, and I imagine as time passes it'll develop a lot of the rest.

notahacker 8y ago
The elderly are certainly the natural use case for voice interfaces and IoT services, since they're a group of people that often find basic household tasks and using a GUI and handheld interface genuinely difficult. I think there's an enormous market there for the right products. But I suspect the mobility-impaired and the lonely-and-bored are more easily served than those with declining cognitive functions. Once people have reached the stage where they're starting to not recognise people or remember what year it is, [re]discovering a disembodied voice in their living room that sometimes answers questions intelligibly and/or does what they ask of it could be a bit disturbing. The UX problem is much harder than simply ensuring the service doesn't make buggy recommendations, and not an easy one to test.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > Once people have reached the stage where they're starting to not recognise people or remember what year it is, [re]discovering a disembodied voice in their living room that sometimes answers questions intelligibly and/or does what they ask of it could be a bit disturbing. On the other hand, there are people who exist now who will, in old age, have had helpful (but occasionally stupid) disembodied computer voices around since childhood.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    Yeah, I was framing it in my mind as helping my own senility. There's not a lot of helping the tech illiterate current elderly - even google home requires a little bit of mental framing as far as commands are concerned.
  - notahacker 8y ago

mrob 8y ago

I think something like MS-DOS. A CLI is good, because it gives you a record of what happened, but Unix-style shells are packed with foot-guns as documented in the Unix-Hater's Handbook[0]. Even with a healthy mind I've lost data to incorrect quoting. MS-DOS is simpler. Lack of multitasking helps too. [0] https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh-download.html https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh-download.html

RankingMember 8y ago
This handbook expresses so many things I've felt, I'm surprised I've never come across it before.

PaulHoule 8y ago

See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/?ref_=ttnw_hd https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/?ref_=ttnw_hd I would not at all agree that "today's old people aren't fluent with technology." My Aunt Lucy in a nursing home just got a phone, she thinks Facebook is just great so she keep track of what the rest of the family is doing. Those "chumboxes" on the internet play to the fears and biases of the old and you'd better believe somebody clicks on them. Back in 2001 I went to Carthage, NY to learn how to drive draft horses and all of the old ladies were sitting at a cafe and talking about "AOL" and "Instant Messenger" and "Netscape" and all of that.

DoctorOetker 8y ago
the elderly that we meet in public life might not be representative of the elderly in general...
sigi45 8y ago
Not even our current youth is fluent in technology. Clicking on a webbrowser and connecting to WiFi is not hard. Still have to help people younger and older than me. There are non user, user and user who actually know what they use.
- kungtotte 8y ago
  Anecdotally I prefer helping my grandma's generation (she's 80) than my peers and younger (35). My grandma knows she doesn't know anything. She won't do anything she's unsure of, won't click any link or button without getting my advice first, won't install stupid shit because she doesn't know how and even if she did she's not confident enough to do it on her own. The worst that she could ever do is fatfinger something with her crummy arthritis fingers and I have to take a 15 minute drive to her place and spend another 15 minutes fixing it. People that are my age or younger though? They'll click anything on Facebook and share their information everywhere, will download anything and install it without second thoughts. Their devices are the digital equivalent to Typhoid Mary. Since they think they know stuff, they'll click through dozens of links and dialog popups so even getting them to answer the question "So what did you do?" is a monumental ask, much less fixing the issues they've caused.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

skybrian 8y ago

This is an important and difficult problem to think about. It's great that the author is making the effort. However, the article doesn't mention any caregivers. If you instead assume that there are caregivers involved, how would the assumptions about what software is useful change?

notahacker 8y ago
Assuming the caregiver is a trusted party who can learn to check whether patients have actually responded to the software's recommendations and also do basic configuration work, it potentially makes it a lot easier. It also opens up a different problem which software can also play a role in: non-intrusively monitoring the elderly person when the caregiver is away so the caregiver can ask relevant questions and take relevant steps to help.
cmiles74 8y ago
Caregivers are great, but I think you need to be pretty far in before your family figures it out and gets that kind of thing setup. I don't think it's reasonable for a person with dementia to schedule and manage their own care giving staff, there really needs to be a very competent person double checking their work and making sure they are doing their job adequately.
acutesoftware 8y ago
Author here - having caregivers certainly changes it, but I was focusing on a possible technical solution in addition to caregivers. It would still be nice to have some impartial device tell you or confirm that what is going on, is actually going on.
- skybrian 8y ago
  One thing to consider is that at the point when it becomes difficult to do everything on your own, family or caregivers or whoever is helping you need to understand whatever devices you're using and help you use them. Maybe privacy becomes impractical and other considerations like good record keeping become more important.

subjectsigma 8y ago

Why an app? Friends and family should be making these decisions and helping out. There's no need for a technological solution. I get life isn't perfect and neither are people, but that means software isn't either.

jarvuschris 8y ago
Ideally an app could be a big _help_ to friends and family (assuming someone has those). I'm surprised the author didn't get into this question at all, they sort of touched on the app being an alternative to friends and family controlling your life, but if folks are helping you manager you affairs they'd need to be able to influence the app too. For example, what if you need to start living in a new location afterwards? It makes sense that you would need to build trust with the app on your own ahead of time (or maybe just with apps in general), but folks helping manage your affairs will need access to do things like update your "fences" To your point though -- there is a need for a technological solution. Friends and family should be helping make the decision "grandpa shouldn't being leaving this geofence between 8pm and 6am". After than, watching grandpa all night every night, trying to talk to him first when he starts wandering, having to find out and go find him when he does...these are all things where a technology solution CAN offer huge help and relief to the friends and family
beat 8y ago
Just how much are friends and family expected to attend to someone whose mind is in decline? My grandfather had Alzheimer's. We attended to him more and more as he got worse and worse. But one day, he went down to the basement while grandma was napping, and was doing something that involved a chunk of wood and a piece of pipe in a vise, heating it with a torch while beating on it with a hammer. Luckily, it just set off the smoke alarms and the fire department came. He could have burned the house down with him and grandma in it. That's what happens when you leave someone with Alzheimer's unsupervised for a few minutes. If software can help when they aren't being actively supervised, I'm all for it.
cmiles74 8y ago
It's painful to admit, but many of those people may have passed away already. In my own experience with my own relatives, they have all been in their nineties and in many cases their children had already passed away or moved out of state. Many friends are near the same age and have fallen out of touch, etc.

mettamage 8y ago

I think this is a very important question. The amount of elderly people is about to rise. Also, in The Netherlands (where I live) at least, it's a fairly wealthy group of the population. I see a business opportunity that is worth it from a societal and financial perspective.

projectramo 8y ago

I think the crucial point is you have to develop the habit before the disease sets in. I’ve found the Apple Watch works well because I can set reminders in the watch for someone with memory issues and they already have the habit of looking at their watch. Similarly it would be useful to be able to print something that looks like a newspaper with today’s agenda because they have the habit of reading news. They tend to trust everything so the main hygiene is having a trusted person running the show.

nixpulvis 8y ago
Have fun with the updates then...

lenticular 8y ago

I installed Ubuntu on the PC of an elderly relative in mental decline who kept downloading malicious software. It's worked quite well. She just needs a browser and has no reason to use the terminal or anything.

theandrewbailey 8y ago
That was mostly the reasoning me for me doing the same for my mom and dad. 7-8 years later, there hasn't been any bad things happening, aside from a "Microsoft support" website that wouldn't go away.
beat 8y ago
I gave my mother a Chromebook for the same reason. I'd given her a Windows machine before, and she was constantly calling because she'd click on whatever random toxic shit promised her something for free or warned her of dire consequences or whatever, so her machine was basically a cesspool. Since she got a Chromebook, I haven't had to do any tech support. Win!

jarvuschris 8y ago

I'm not so sure about the point that the software would need to not change. This will be really interesting to see play out as digital natives age. One school of thought is that we've learned a new generation of things, another school of thought is that what we've learned is the skill of coping with constant/rapid change. So would an app UI changing throw off a mentally declining digital native? Or would they just relive the same excitement every day that their app got an update and has a whole new UI. As futurist Alvin Toffler said: > The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

cmiles74 8y ago
My grandmother (96) suffers from dementia but consistently recognizes me. My visual appearance has changed but it seems like if it's slow and gradual enough, it would be okay. In my opinion, the ability to learn is one of the skills that is hit hard by dementia. The inability to string moments together and view them as a whole makes learning something new a real challenge and the longer it takes to do the thing, the more likely it is that it will simply be un-learnable.

chrisco255 8y ago

vim...since I'll still be trying to figure out how to exit it.

jraph 8y ago
A nice seclusion room!

Iwan-Zotow 8y ago

If I'll become senile I'll trust each and every piece of software

clort 8y ago

I think the future could be radically different from what we see now, depending on technological advances. 'Phones' with 'Apps' is one thing, but a genuinely smart system which could have tendrils into your phone, your watch, in your robot helper, or just being aware of what you do around the house and have a voice would be a game changer for old people and certainly I would expect things to go that way in the next 30 years. I saw a film a few years ago, 'Robot and Frank' which was set in the near future where such systems were becoming available. Frank would have perhaps been 40-50 now and while he had used technology he was not comfortable with the robot his son got him. At least this film educated my partner about the possibilities of such systems and/or software without being too fantastical (Robot is a little clunky, compared to Ava from Ex Machina)

ilamont 8y ago

There's a movie that touches on this very topic and references many of the requirements listed in TFA. It's quite good: "Robot & Frank" (2012) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/

ALittleLight 8y ago

I've thought about this recently. My grandfather has been struggling with some senility like problems. He tends to leave his house in an attempt to "go home" and wander off somewhere and then suddenly realize he's in the middle of nowhere and doesn't know how to get home. When I think about developing such conditions myself it doesn't seem like it would be as much of a problem for me. If I suddenly came to cognition in the middle of nowhere with no idea where I was I'd immediately use my phone and Google maps to find the way back or Uber if it was far away. Likewise, if I found myself in an unfamiliar place and had a compulsion to "go home" I assume I'd try to use Google maps to find my home, and when it pointed to my current location I might dig into my recent photos and notes to discover messages to myself that I actually do live here and have been having memory problems and what I should do is sit in a chair and wait for a bit. I hope the advance in technology and the extent to which my phone is part of my life and mind will make me more resilient to some of the harms of old age.

sixstringtheory 8y ago
That’s all assuming you brought your device with you in your stupor. It could be an even greater shock when you come to and realize you don’t have the thing you’re hopelessly reliant on!
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  This could become a major use-case for wearables as more tech-reliant generations age. Before Google ruined the UI, putting on my smart watch was part of getting dressed and I felt weird without it on.
randcraw 8y ago
From what I've seen, once you reach your grandfather's age, you too will have the same problem he does -- the inability to reason your way out of the problem. My father has reached a similar state of mind recently, and I'm not at all sure how to address it and fill the void it created, especially since he never was very fluent with tech (computers or cell phones), and he lives alone. Ten years ago your grandfather would have done what anyone without a GPS does -- he'd retrace his steps, or bring a map, or ask someone how to get home. But the problem now is that these things don't occur to him; his mind is no longer self sufficient; he's confused. I think the only tech solution is for him to be able to speak aloud, "Take me home", and hopefully there's a device in his hand (or strapped to his arm) that understands his words and can tell him exactly what to do. Or it can send a message to a rescue team which comes to get him. At some point in life, when your mind is no longer able to think rationally, I believe your digital assistant will have to take charge completely -- listening to your voice and telling you exactly what to do or calling help for you. Hoping to restore lost cognitive skills via the right kind of device or app is not a plan that scales well with a declining mind.

hnruss 8y ago

I wonder if it will even be a problem for me? I've spent my whole life learning how to create and use new interfaces, so hopefully I'll retain the ability to do so as I age? Or maybe AI will have advanced so much that it understands even my most incoherent request?

ridgeguy 8y ago
I think your facility in creating/using new interfaces won't be much of a protective factor. I think your being, say, less than 35 years old at the moment would be much more important. By the time you're 65+, there's a reasonable chance there will be effective, affordable treatments.

howard941 8y ago

I won't trust anything other than my own fears at the moment and nothing will convince me otherwise at that point. Dementia ruins everything.

stronglikedan 8y ago
> Dementia ruins everything. I like to think that it makes everything a lot more interesting. Just like I like to think that, if I ever found myself falling through the atmosphere for some reason beyond my control, I would enjoy skydiving once before I die, since I would never jump out of a perfectly good plane. I'm sure I'm wrong in both cases, but I'm perfectly happy being an eternal optimist right now.

RegBarclay 8y ago

My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last month. He's had symptoms for a couple of years, but as an engineer with a pretty high cognitive reserve he compensated with systems, rituals, and routines, but, mostly, paper systems. In the 30 years since my grandmother died from Alzheimer's, we haven't made much progress on treatment. I'm now looking ahead about 30 years to the age when my father and his mother both experienced the onset of symptoms and I'm thinking about how I might compensate, keep myself aware of my condition, and remain functional for longer. As a software developer who already relies heavily on software systems to keep life organized, I expect software will play a large role for me. I believe there's already a market for technology widgets for cognitively impaired people. Dad still likes to surf the internet to read the news and do research about his condition. It would be handy if I could sandbox him a little. Is there a way to rig a browser so a user can't buy anything online? That would be handy. As wearable tech -- and in 30 years perhaps implantable tech -- advances, I can envision many devices and software aids for those with cognitive decline. Would be nice, though, if I didn't need any of that because the next 30 years yields an effective treatment or cure.

gpm 8y ago
> Is there a way to rig a browser so a user can't buy anything online? That would be handy. Lack of credit card? Maybe just carefully removing the cvv code from cards?
- RegBarclay 8y ago
  That's the real answer -- take his cards away. But it's just not time yet. I wonder if there's a card that can't be used online? Hey, dad, your new credit card came in. I've already learned that one of the realities of being the dementia victim's business manager is that you have to lie to them convincingly. It's for their own good, but it feels wrong anyway.
  - nowarninglabel 8y ago
    There's actually a great company that has a solution/card for this: https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/ https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/

adamtj 8y ago

Probably all of it.

samat 8y ago

Reminded me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

thinkling 8y ago

I'm more interested in the lead-in period before one is senile but when the brain (memory in particular) isn't what it used to be. I'd love sidekick software that helps remember things and can be queried very quickly and easily.

drskaugen 8y ago

If you were old and senile, your Auntie who called would be ancient.. And BTW some older people use lots of apps, I probably have more than 100 on my iPhone. But I can't remember what they are for.. (Just kidding ..)

Forbo 8y ago
I realize you're probably joking, but it's possible (common, even?) to have an aunt/uncle who is younger than you.

crucialfelix 8y ago

I've just spent three days with my mother. She is in a care home. She has Alzheimer's, a cat and a laptop. She's pretty sharp still but sinking. The laptop throws up some warning screen on bootup about the power adapter and recommends to go into BIOS to stop the warning. I wrote out the instructions: just ignore and click continue. She's locked on that screen obsessing. Anyway she doesn't have the password, so the computer is useless. She can't stop trying though. She's shamed by not being able to use it. If she could get in then the frustrations would only increase. The cat is great though. Planning tech for Alzheimer's is like designing UI for people on acid. You have no idea how confusing things can get and how silly your interface and assumptions are.

existencebox 8y ago
My grandmother spent the last years of her life deep in the fog of Alzheimers. Unfortunately, I can't imagine any level of tech beyond the _most basic_ supervisory and assistive care would have helped in her case. (She thought, and had many violent incidents as a result of thinking, that I was her dead husband, among other things) My only silver lining is that she was too far gone to feel any of that frustration. She lived in a different world from the rest of us near the end. I say this because your last sentence stuck with me in that context. I'd say it's even harder than acid, the fundamental precepts of how your brain functions have begun to break down, and my focus, at least with preparing myself philosophically for this path and in brainstorming assistive capabilities, is on ways to integrate tech "invisibly." Even the most basic things, better monitoring for incidents, the ability to detect the need for assisted care before it became urgent, mechanisms to bridge gaps caused by the loss of individual competence without requiring new skill sets and learning. I was only a child when I was exposed to the bulk of this, so sincere apologies if any of the above seems to come from a weird point of view, I realize it can be a sensitive subject.
- crucialfelix 8y ago
  Higher doses of acid and bad trips result in intense pattern transfer. In my youth I've had the ink boil off the page as I wrote, confusion as to how many people I am, and one time I couldn't understand cause and effect for a few hours. There really is no UI for people that don't comprehend the arrow of causality. There is a woman at my mother's home. She had run a company, now she's in an advanced stage of AD. She wanted to pitch an idea to me to see if I would go into business with her. It was something that went around and around and around and it looks at you. Eventually I figured out that she had been looking at a rainbow windmill on the balcony and had transferred that into some cosmic invention. Her other idea was for a place where people could meet to work on ideas and build electronics. Especially for young women. That's a makerspace ! I found one in high Wycombe and considered contacting them to see if any women makers wanted to visit this fascinating old woman.

jacknews 8y ago

IMHO, today's software (particularly on mobile) is barely usable for adults, so the best software for young children and the very old is no software.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

acutesoftware 8y ago

If anyone has any links to existing products, or organisations looking at this stuff let please post details here (or email me) and I'll update the references on the blog post. I didn't find much at all in terms of software, but we need to at least try some things. I made a start a few years ago - just a shell really to try and work out the requirements in my head https://github.com/acutesoftware/acute-experiments/tree/master/ITNOBAM https://github.com/acutesoftware/acute-experiments/tree/mast... If you want to contribute, or share any code you've done I think you should. It would nice if we could work together on this.

nwatson 8y ago

I'll trust some beautiful fem-robot that says she likes me for who I am and that I make her laugh and tells me how lucky my late wife was and that no she needs the bank account details just so she can wire the car down payment I've been taking about to my granddaughter and how she's sure my daughter wants power of attorney to get control and feed a fentanyl habit and that yes even though I've had two heart attacks a trip to Bali would do me good. I'm f*cked.

jonstewart 8y ago

The same as Ken Thompson, that which I write entirely myself, senility be damned.

Haga 8y ago

They will fish for us senile with emulated win xp or console popups

jrnichols 8y ago

One of the things I worry about is the web itself. I've had more experiences with elderly folks being confused by deceptive advertising and intrusive advertising than anything. Pop up ads, auto-playing videos, etc. To me, the internet trash of advertising is more of a roadblock to the elderly/senile.