Melodies for Memories

The smart pillow that provides affordable music-based therapy for dementia patients, one song at a time.

Melodies for Memories (M4M) is a smart pillow that provides music-based therapy for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other forms of dementia. M4M plays music from personalized playlists that are curated using modern AI and also includes the personal preferences of the users of the pillow. There is a simple-to-use web and mobile app where users or caregivers can select songs for their playlists, both before and while the pillow is in use. The app will be catered toward the older adult population, and it will have voice search capabilities so that users can say the names of the songs they want to play.

M4M's smart pillow can take on many shapes, including even as a stuffed bunny! Bunnybot, first developed by Sharon and her friends back in 2016, was a winning project at HackNY: A stuffed bunny that uses an Arduino Uno, two touch sensors, one buzzer, and one LCD backlight to sing, purr, and display messages. See here for a demo: https://youtu.be/H1NkAlrd0KE

According to the CDC, as of the year 2020, as many as 5.8 million Americans were living with Alzheimer's disease, and the majority of people suffering from this disease is aged 65 and older. Scientists have found that dementia prevalence increases in people as people age, even in the most advanced ages; the probability of having dementia increased by 10% each year, and 90% every 5 years [1]. As the worldwide elderly population continues to grow, scientists have projected a tripling of dementia cases by 2050 [2]. This is the problem we are trying to solve: this massive growing number of people around the globe with Alzheimer's, which leads to a rising demand for health care services to treat Alzheimer's and other causes of dementia.

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journa...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/b...

The solution serves Alzheimer's patients who are looking for a way to mitigate the disease. According to the CDC, as of the year 2020, as many as 5.8 million Americans were living with Alzheimer's disease, and the majority of people suffering from this disease is aged 65 and older. Almost two-thirds of people with Alzheimer's in the US are women, Black Americans are twice as likely to have Alzheimer's or other dementias as older white Americans, and older people of Hispanic descent are about 1.5 times as likely to have Alzheimer's or other dementias as older white Americans. [1] This is a disease that disproportionally affects the older population and minorities/underserved groups. Furthermore, the worldwide prevalence is estimated to be as high as 24 million. This massive number of people both in the US and outside of the US with Alzheimer's plagues the elderly population, and the COVID pandemic has exacerbated the number of deaths related to the disease because of the rising cost of caregivers and health care services. Those suffering from Alzheimer's need mental and physical support due to mental and physical deterioration--M4M provides both in the form of a low-cost smart pillow. This tool can also help with detecting problems that can be reported to healthcare providers for additional support.

[1]https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/facts-figures

Our team has been actively engaged with senior citizens who are vulnerable to dementia and exhibit symptoms of cognitive decline. Sharon has studied the brain, attending a neuroscience conference where she had a long discussion with two Nobel Laureates in neuroscience, Eric Kandel and Torsten Wiesel, who talked about their growing interest in the aging brain. Over seven years, Sharon has helped to bring music at senior homes through volunteering to play solo and orchestral arrangements. She has also volunteered to work with older adults assisting them with the use of technology and learned about the best practices of technology design for the elderly population. Isabel has volunteered at Mount Sinai Hospital to assist staff in serving and facilitating clinical care for elderly patients.

While our research on the elderly population and the effect of music on Alzheimer's disease is ongoing, once we landed on our idea of user-friendly smart pillow, we began testing out our idea by planning out field research studies. We have also explored the feasibility of the product by working with our current resources: inserting phones with playlists into pillows and seeing how people react to the product idea. Moreover, we have pinpointed the most vulnerable populations that we wish to design our product around and specifically selected one senior housing location as a location to pilot our first products.

AI is the core technology that powers our solution. It is used for selection of the sounds and music that are played by the pillow. AI is also what is used to measure the physiological effects of aural therapy on the user as the user undergoes aural therapy.

Our solution does not serve anyone yet since we having launched our solution. We plan to serve the 90 residents in the Vera Haile Senior Housing next year [1]. This product will help the residents as a simple way to help prevent Alzheimer's disease in those who are at high risk of the disease as well as relieve the caregivers who work in the community as an intelligent and safe companion robotic caregiver. Since one in nine people aged 65 and older, or 11.3%, of have Alzheimer's dementia [2], we expect that at least ten people will benefit directly from our solution.

[1] https://www.mercyhousing.org/california/vera-haile-senior/

[2] https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/facts-figures#:~:text=Seventy%2Dtwo%20percent%20are%20age,11.3%25)%20has%20Alzheimer's%20dementia.

Goal 1: M4M is successfully adopted by our first senior living community partner, Vera Haile Senior Housing, which houses 90 residents, by the end of 2022.

Goal 2: Decrease the need for overworked in-person caregivers in senior living communities.

Goal 3: Reduce the speed of neurodegeneration of Alzheimer's patients and those at risk of Alzheimer's.

Goal 1: M4M is successfully adopted by our first senior living community partner, Vera Haile Senior Housing, which houses 90 residents, by the end of 2022.

Measurement Plan: Survey the residents and caregivers in the senior living community to collect data on satisfaction and frequency of use.

Goal 2: Decrease the need for overworked in-person caregivers in senior living communities.
Measurement Plan: Timesheets of the caregivers at senior housing will provide information about working hours of caregivers.

Goal 3: Reduce the speed of neurodegeneration of Alzheimer's patients and those at risk of Alzheimer's.
Measurement Plan: Gather data on behavioral and cognitive assessments designed to diagnose the levels of Alzheimer's dementia.

The main barrier that currently exists for us to accomplish our goals in the next year are technical. Because our team is composed of full-time working young adults, we have the financial means to work on this project, but the project currently is just a concept with an identified market. Even though we don't have a prototype yet, we are confident that we can build the product easily because of our past experience in working with Raspberry Pi and Arduino, winning a hackathon where we placed a speaker inside an Easter bunny that allowed it to sing when it was hugged, while in college. Thus, the technical challenge does not lie within the engineering of the product, but rather within the domain expertise: The technical challenge will be to obtain a full-time team member with expertise in diseases of dementia, with a certified medical degree.

Sharon has often played music from her pillow as she struggled to fall asleep. After winning a hackathon by building a singing stuffed bunny in her first year of college, she began to conceptualize many IOT products. During her college years, she learned that her grandmother had died due to Alzheimer's. Having volunteered to play music at senior communities and to assist seniors with using technology at the library, which has taught about designing technology for the older population, Sharon has envisioned creating a pillow that plays music specifically to combat Alzheimer's. With her passion in bridging technology with the brain, after receiving a college degree in computer science, Sharon decided to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. Combined with training from Stanford's Center for Minds, Brains, and Technology and Harvard-MIT's Center for Brains, Minds + Machines, she has the expertise to bring this product to life.

Isabel lives a block away from a senior center in a neighborhood with a high concentration older residents. She also has close interactions with groups at highest risk of developing Alzheimer's: she has volunteered at Mount Sinai Hospital to assist staff in serving clinical care for elderly patients, and she has lived with and personally cared for two nonagenarians with Alzheimer's for nearly a decade. Her experience caring for senior citizens and witnessing the decline of their memory over time has driven her to research therapies that are able to mitigate this condition in a comforting way. As an operations research engineer dedicated to improving the quality of life of underserved groups and well-informed on technologies aimed towards mitigating dementia, Isabel has the skills and vision for nurturing solutions to combat Alzheimer's.

Not yet, but have plans to partner with senior living communities.

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