Facebook App Simulates Dementia

April 29, 2014 -- A new Facebook app launched today designed to personalize and simulate the experience of having dementia.

The app, FaceDementia, put out by Alzheimer’s Research UK, temporarily harnesses a Facebook user’s photos, liked pages, statuses and highlights the key details of their life.

The app then directs the user’s attention to the symptoms of dementia and simultaneously causes some these Facebook features to disappear. After the experience, the user’s Facebook returns to its original condition.

In Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK Rebecca Wood's decision to use Facebook, she said, "Facebook’s appeal is that it can gather your friends and family and keep them close, with memories and contacts all contained within one space. ... We wanted to use these Facebook features to illustrate how those thoughts and memories can be confused, or forgotten altogether."

The app also allows users the option to listen to what people affected with dementia have to say. The videos detail how the symptoms of dementia have affected them and their close ones.

Alzheimer’s Research UK is the United Kingdom's leading dementia research charity that is working to find preventions, treatments and a cure for dementia.

For more information, visit www.facedementia.org.