Remind Me To Remember: A pilot study of a novel smartphone reminder application for older adults with dementia and mild cognitive impairment.

Everything was done in one laboratory session, on a single prototype Android phone, with the study team present. Nothing here shows the app works at home, on someone's own phone, over time, or among the everyday distractions of a real household. Only ten people took part, so the analyses of which participant features relate to benefit are exploratory and would need replication in a bigger study. Three participants already got every task right without the app, so the study could not show any benefit for them. The ceiling means the overall effect may look smaller or larger depending on how many people like them are in your caseload. Everyone received the same alarms and rewards, so it is unknown whether tailoring them to the person would work better. Participants had to be physically able to walk down a hall and use a phone, and were excluded for sensory or motor difficulties, major neurological history, current major depression or anxiety disorder, so this says nothing about clients who cannot manage those. The task was getting a glass of water, a low-risk and familiar activity. One carer questioned how well it transfers to tasks that cannot be photographed, such as remembering to use a catheter. The comparison was the same task done without the app, not another reminder device or an established memory strategy.

The authors report no conflict of interest. No funding statement appears in the supplied text.

Do not read this as proof that a smartphone reminder app will help your patients at home. The test was reaching a glass of water in a laboratory, with one study phone and the researchers present, and three of the ten participants already managed every task without the app. One participant with the lowest cognitive scores in the sample answered the first alarm and then ignored the next three.