Do you have a loved one with Dementia or old-age related conditions?
Today, Michael Woodbury and I are launching OpenCare — a diagnostic tracking app that benefits both caregivers and their elderly or diagnosed loved ones. The culmination of 9 months of development and research.
App Store Link
In August of last year, a student at my university came to me with a proposal for an app. He was studying neuroscience and interested in dementia research.
His premise was simple: Current solutions for at-home care tracking are pencil & paper. A modern, digital solution to at-home caregiver tracking would be a game-changer for improving the lives of dementia caregivers & dementia research.
Absent from the equation was the caregiver. Improving the quality of life of both caregivers and their dementia-diagnosed loved one would be a vital step.
How can caregivers get the power to improve the lives of their patient and themselves?
There are a lot of roles where an app can be a tool for diagnostic tracking of senior, dementia, and Alzheimer’s patients. The real goal of any product like this would be to have more insight over the status of the patient’s condition over time.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Michael originally started the idea with some simple wireframes in his notebook. This is the basis for what he was able to send to me during our initial phone call in July of 2017.
Comprehensive Need-finding
Before any code or designs, Michael and I started needfinding research. Michael was able to talk to several researchers and caregivers about the potential of an app like OpenCare.
Things we heard from people:
- Diagnostic Tracking I want to keep track of problems, issues, or events over time for the patient and myself. This would help so I can compare things over time… or I can seek help if things get really bad.
- Notes I want to write notes about the person’s daily functioning — things I notice or what someone else should know. I would also want to make a note on a specific event. For instance, if they refused to eat or drink, I may want to make a note about the type of food or their habits earlier in the day.
- Medications Keeping track of the dozens of medications my patient takes is very difficult.
- Resources Navigating all the topics within senior and dementia care, I really want to have resources in one place. Also, if I find a resource, I would want to save it for later.
Distributed Survey
We used a website called TypeForm to distribute a 6 question survey to interested app users.
User Interface Prototyping
With Michael’s initial wireframes & our initial need-finding research prepared, I set about developing a simple use interface prototype in Sketch for the top features we wanted to implement.
High-Fidelity Prototype
We used Proto.io to turn the Sketch art-boards in a fully interactive user experience prototype.
Building iOS App
After showing the high-fidelity prototype to potential users and the dementia researchers, we started coding the initial iOS app with XCode during the Fall of 2017.
Adding another Developer
When development was in full-swing, we knew that we would need another developer to have an eye on the engineering process of the app. In the blink of an eye, Andrew Robinson, came through a referral from a co-worker. Immediately, we had more eyes on the code & development of the app. Things when much more smoothly.
Rich Accessibility Features
Since our target market for the initial app was 55+ years old caregivers, we knew that accessibility would be of high importance. While investment in coding resources were limited, we were able to develop OpenCare with rich accessibility features from day one.
Dynamic Type
One of the prime examples of accessibility is our use of dynamic type on iOS 11. Every screen of the app is visually responsive to changes in accessibility font sizes. This means that users with low-vision are able to easily read typography in the app. We added a simple video in the Settings page to educate users on how to add dynamic-type in their iPhone accessibility settings as-well.
Campus Times Profile
A few weeks before the app was going to go live, Michael got in touch with the University of Rochester’s student-run news paper — The Campus Times. We had a great profile run giving insight into the motivation for the app.
Student-developed app helps with the care of people with dementia
Woodbury, a neuroscience major, came up with the concept for OpenCare after shadowing a neurologist.
“I noticed the difficulty caretakers faced in trying to accurately recollect all the symptoms the patient experienced,” Woodbury said.
Woodbury has family experience with dementia, and has also volunteered at hospice care facilities. He has worked with researchers, a neurologist, a neuropsychologist, and a nurse, all affiliated with the UR Medical Center, for their insight into how OpenCare could best improve patient and caregiver quality of life.
OpenCare allows caretakers to log the severity of symptoms, track progress over time, create patient profiles to keep note of care preferences, and store information on care history and medications. The goal of the app is to give caregivers more security over the status of their patients in a user-friendly, professional format.
Conclusion
Michael and I are very excited to see where things go with OpenCare. Many family & friends supported us through the development process, and we cannot thank them enough, including Jack Piotrowski for photography.
You can get OpenCare for free on the App Store starting today. This was a hugely large & impactful project to work on, so we want to have as many people benefit from it as possible.
Do us a favor… Share & rate OpenCare app on the App Store. Tell your relatives about the app & its benefits. Thank you. ❤️
App Store Download
Top 5 things you can do with OpenCare:
- Track & chart symptoms of dementia and caregiver stress over time.
- Store vital information about you and your loved one.
- Keep a detailed list of medications.
- Take notes in a journal to log observations.
- Take advantage of our hand-selected external resources.
This article, OpenCare, or any associated campaigns are not associated with the University of Rochester, Kyle’s, Mikey’s, or Andrew’s employers, or any of the OpenCare’s affiliations. Please use OpenCare’s Terms and Privacy documents for any other information you need.
