Fighting Memory Loss With iPads

Alzheimer's Disease Association (Singapore) Uses iPad to help battle memory loss won S$15,000 in Creativity Contest Among Welfare Organizations in Singapore.

MADAM Heng Kim Tow, a 97-year-old patient with Alzheimer's disease, has taken to using the iPad like a duck to water. She views the photographs of her family on the tablet computer, putting her back in touch with the people and events in her life, and plays an eye-hand coordination game of balancing a virtual egg on the screen of the device.

The iPad is not hers. It belongs to the Alzheimer's Disease Association (Singapore), which is using the device to slow down the deterioration of the illness among the senior citizens in its day-care centres.

Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking and behaviour. The symptoms usually set in slowly and worsen over time, becoming severe enough to interfere with daily tasks.

The association's consultant occupational therapist Lim Hwee Er, 39, stumbled accidentally on the usefulness of the iPad in reaching out to Alzheimer's at the New Horizon Centre in Toa Payoh and saw a new responsiveness in her. In quick order, two iPads were bought for the use of the senior citizens there.

Ms Lim said the money S$15,000 recently won in a competition to reward creativity among voluntary welfare organisations will go towards buying more iPads for its four day-care centres.

The other organisation which won $15,000 in the competition organised by the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) was the Lions Befrienders Service Association, for encouraging lonely elderly to become befrienders and to set up their own social networks.

Representatives of the two agencies received their prizes from Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Chan Chun Sing in a ceremony that was a part of the NCSS Members Conference held at the Concorde Hotel.

In his speech to the 550 conference participants, Mr Chan said that as the population ages and as Singaporeans become more well-informed, the social service sector here must keep pace with the changes and evolve to meet increasingly complex demands. He encouraged the sector to experiment with new service models and adapt from best practices elsewhere. He also called on the sector to lay out a robust safety net so no one falls through the cracks, and to develop social service professionals.

Speaking to reporters later, he said that as challenges become more diverse, a "one-size-fits-all" model will not work for social service any more. This would encourage people in the sector to think creatively about how to get better bang for their buck and to be more productive, he added.

(Source: www.alz.org.sg)