Reminders at breaks in the day got people to use a planner app more
Who it’s about: Older adults, People with a health condition
- Helped
People who got reminders at breaks in their day used their planner app more than those without these reminders.
- Rule: Get a remindertested
- Rule: At a natural break between activitiestested
- Action: Use a planner or calendar appused
Small randomised trial of 32 older adults with memory problems · vs the same app training and alarms without reminders · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ unclear how groups were picked; numbers unreliable
The study
Who took part
32 adults aged 50 and over with early memory problems took part at home in the US states of Washington and Idaho. They were about 71 to 74 on average, and 29 were counted at the end.
What they did
Both groups had 5 training sessions at home over 4 weeks on a tablet planner app. For several days both also got an alarm every hour asking them to note what they'd done. One group also had home sensors that noticed when they finished an activity. After an hour without using the app, it reminded them to use it at the next break. These reminders ran during training and in the first and third months after it.
What happened
The reminder group used the app more often over 16 weeks. The groups were the same in the first two weeks and drifted apart from about week 3 or 4. The numbers printed for the last month point the other way from the tests. Some counts don't add up either. The first 10 people were not put into groups at random. The groups also differed at the start: the reminder group had more women and was less at ease with technology.
Source
Partnering a Compensatory Application with Activity-Aware Prompting to Improve Use in Individuals with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Clinical Trial (2021)
DOI: 10.3233/jad-215022 (opens in a new tab)Tools in this study
Rule · when
At a natural break between activitiesPrompted or done at a transition between activities rather than at a fixed clock time.
Action
Use a planner or calendar appRegularly use a digital planner, calendar or memory-aid app to record and check plans.
