About the project
This project will create a new and innovative user-friendly system that supports active consolidation of recent memories. Personal memories play a significant role in connecting us with other people and helping us to make decisions about the future. As we get older, our memory for the distant past is relatively well-protected but recent events and conversations tend to fade quickly. At best, this is frustrating. But at worst, it can significantly impact on a person’s sense of self and connection to others. There are numerous apps and interventions available to support a person’s distant memories but memory for recent events ('short-term memory') has largely been neglected.
Everyday forgetfulness can severely disrupt connections even with close family and may discourage people from having conversations or meeting up. For most of us, social conversations revolve around what we and others have each been doing recently (updating) or in the past (reminiscing). Our sense of identity is also very dependent on these personal memories: for example, I feel like a like a mum because I remember doing “mum things”. Our research has shown that active consolidation (for example diary-writing, photo-logging) can significantly improve memory for recent past, and that this in turn significantly impacts on quality of life. However, this is time consuming and impractical for many people, especially older people who typically have less technical know-how. This project involves the development of a workable solution, with support from Zinc VC and through co-collaboration with clients from Age UK Barnet.
Funding body
UKRI Healthy Ageing Catalyst Award
Investigator
Professor Catherine Loveday