Amazon Echo and alzheimer's ??

sparkiemalarkie

I'm looking for people that own and use Amazon Echo so that I can pick their brains.

Mum has Alzheimer's and often forgets the day, month, when her next hospital appointment is and even the time of day.
She gets on a loop of asking the same question which causes anxiety....


I was just wondering if something like Amazon Echo might be useful.


Any suggestions or endorsements about Echo as I'm not quite sure what it's useful for.


tia


sparkie

Gers

sparkiemalarkie wrote: »

I'm looking for people that own and use Amazon Echo so that I can pick their brains.

Mum has Alzheimer's and often forgets the day, month, when her next hospital appointment is and even the time of day.
She gets on a loop of asking the same question which causes anxiety....


I was just wondering if something like Amazon Echo might be useful.


Any suggestions or endorsements about Echo as I'm not quite sure what it's useful for.


tia


sparkie

The proposed ads seems to be mainly USA based, for now and developers have to meet stringent criteria.

My Echo is useful for telling me the time, especially in the middle of the night when I wake up too early. Without even opening my eyes I can find out whether I should open my eyes.

I also use it for appointment reminders etc - however your Mum would need to remember specific trigger words with specific syntax to make things work.

Even though I'm a huge fan of the Echo / Dot I doubt it would be useful for those with your Mum's illness. It's great for those with limited mobilty, the visually impaired etc (HA is particularly great),

I hope this helps.

sparkiemalarkie

Thank you both very much for your comments and suggestions.


I think that I'm trying to find a magic wand that will help mum and give me a few hours respite..


My Echo is useful for telling me the time, especially in the middle of the night when I wake up too early. Without even opening my eyes I can find out whether I should open my eyes.

This is one of mums big problems. She will keep waking during the night because she is worried that she might have an appointment and that she might oversleep, only later to discover that it's a weekend.
She phones me repeatedly when anxious to check what ever happens to be on her mind at the time (usually appointments)


The alternative is another day clock for the bedroom-these cost in excess of £50 -so I thought that I would explore the echo.


I have read some articles re Amazon Echo and Alzheimer's and they tell how you can play music, have audio books get crossword solutions etc but I'm guessing that there needs to be some form of subscriptions in place...


sparkie

Johnmcl7

It's a difficult one to say, what I find impressive about the Echo is that you don't need to give it specific commands and can be quite general so there's no memorising all the exact commands. My Mum likes little touches such as the Echo recognising compliments and thanking her for them.

My Dad is terrible with technology as he finds it difficult to read screens and small inputs so the Echo would be perfect for him but he won't use it, he generally refuses to use any technology at all.

I don't think you'll really know how your Mum will get on with it without trying. Some services need subscriptions but you can set up music through free radio stations, no subscription needed.

John

zaax

What about Google Home?

sparkiemalarkie

zaax wrote: »

What about Google Home?

I've been trying to find a comparison between the two and can't really find much info on the Google Home.


sparkie

[Deleted User]

Google home is supposedly better at answering 'internet based' questions (e.g. What Actress played Daphne in Fraiser?)

I have an Amazon Dot - the hockey puck sized Echo device. You can connect it up to various calendars then ask it what is next on your schedule. It'll give you a news / weather report from whatever service you want. You can set reminders and alarms / countdown timers.

If you've bought books from Amazon, you can have them read out (not all, but if they're available on kindle then it's usually ok) - and if you've bought from Audibles it'll do it.

If you subscribe to Amazon Prime (£80ish a year) then you have access to a music library too (about a million songs). There's a bunch of premade playlists.

You can get it to connect to digital radio stations too "Echo, play BBC Radio 3".

I bought a smart plug (£16 from argos) and I now voice control a lamp or fan via the echo.

Does your mum have broadband and wifi? Is it capped? All of this is internet based. I've never heard an advert on it.

My 'MSE-planning' meant I bought it for £35 (Waited for it to be discounted, then bought it from the Prime Now service with a discount voucher for first use)

Gers

Gers wrote: »

I also use it for appointment reminders etc - however your Mum would need to remember specific trigger words with specific syntax to make things work.
.

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

It's a difficult one to say, what I find impressive about the Echo is that you don't need to give it specific commands and can be quite general so there's no memorising all the exact commands.


John

You see that I find the exact opposite! If I don't phrase something the way that Alexa recognises it the response is 'Mmmm, I'm having trouble with that one'. 'She' is getting better though, I think the developers are doing tweaking and twiddling behind the scenes.

Some things are funny though - try asking 'her' if she's going to vote!

I control power sockets with voice (or app) via TP-link smart plugs and bulbs - I have no need for more HA but others are doing brilliant things with it. There's a FB group for Amazon Echo users in the UK, some of the folk there are very helpful and offer great advice.

Still no help to the OP as we have different experiences.

RumRat

sparkiemalarkie wrote: »

I've been trying to find a comparison between the two and can't really find much info on the Google Home.


sparkie

The internet is full of information about Google Home.
It works very well, but, as someone else mentioned your mum will need to remember to say Hey/OK Google before each action.

sparkiemalarkie

Thank you so much for the help and thoughts.


I love the idea of voice controlled smart plugs- that would be so useful to her.
Mum does have internet but it's capped at only 10 GB (I think... it's 10 something or other) so this might gobble up the allowance.


I like the idea of being able to give a command to phone someone is that possible on either device?


I will take a look at the FB page it might give me some ideas.


thanks for the input.


sparkie

RumRat

There aren't many capped Broadband packages out there these days. It would be worth either phoning the supplier (BT?) and getting an unlimited package or changing supplier. I'm willing to bet you can get unlimited for less than the 10GB one
That said, asking something like Google home hub questions wouldn't really eat into much.