Facebook Dementia app shines a spotlight on the devastating illness
Facebook has teamed up with Alzheimer’s research UK to publish the FaceDementia app, a collaboration designed to show social media users what it’s like to live with the debilitating illness.
The app works by actively ‘taking over’ the personal Facebook page of participants, temporarily deleting personal photos, important events and key updates to mimick the devastating symptoms of the disease.
Fortunately, unlike the real condition, Facebook users will be able to restore their page to its original condition after running the experience by instead presenting the effects as an overlay upon the actual page.
Curious members of the social media juggernaut can also watch a series of short videos in which those living with dementia explain what it is like to live with the condition.
Rebecca Wood, chief executive of Alzheimer's Research UK, 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. It also develops a diary of your life since you joined the site and documents your thoughts and musings during that time.
"We wanted to use these Facebook features to illustrate how those thoughts and memories can be confused, or forgotten altogether, as experienced by some of the hundreds of thousands of people across the UK living with dementia.
"Stigma around dementia is due in part to a lack of public awareness and understanding, so FaceDementia will be invaluable in helping people better understand the condition.”