Improvise AI.

Primary Expert Interviews: Conducted deep-dive sessions with a specialised dementia care nurse with 30 years of clinical experience, focusing on patient agitation, trigger factors for memory recall, and effective redirection techniques.

• Carer Experience: Interviewed primary family carers and joined active dementia support networks across Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram to observe unfiltered daily pain points, emotional burnout, and coping mechanisms.

• Secondary Clinical Research: Analysed medical papers and care guidelines from the HSE and the NHS regarding cognitive decline and the psychological effects of cognitive friction on patients.
  
  

  Transforming insights into Design Features

  
  Insight A: The Shame of the Memory Test

  • The Source: HSE/NHS Papers & Expert Nurse Interview.

  • The Reality: Interrogating a patient with "Do you remember?" triggers immediate anxiety, shame, and cognitive withdrawal.

  • The Design Response: Improvise completely removes interrogation. Moving portraits and ambient audio act as passive sensory anchors, creating a safe atmosphere requiring zero cognitive output.

  Insight B: The Burnout from "Rolling With It"

  • The Source: Online Carer Support Groups.

  • The Reality: Carers face severe psychological exhaustion from constant verbal redirection and modifying homes into restrictive environments.

  • The Design Response: The interface shifts the dynamic from clinical survival to shared connection, giving carers a calm, creative outlet that naturally breaks the cycle of repetitive redirection.

  Insight C: The Power of Tiny, Unique Traits

  • The Source: Caregiver Interviews & Hospice Observations.

  • The Reality: Clinical charts reduce patients to symptoms. True connection relies on capturing the person’s specific quirks, habits, and physical gestures.

  • The Design Response: A prompt-based onboarding flow extracts subtle details (e.g., "jingling coins"). This keeps the AI-generated movement faithful and human, avoiding an uncanny or generic output.

    
    To design a safe, effective intervention, the product operates on a dual-user framework that splits administrative control from the core sensory experience.

    
    

    1. The Primary User: The Carer (Profile Owner)

    • Who they are: Family members, spouses, or professional healthcare staff managing the daily environment of a person living with dementia.

    • Their role: They "own" the account, drive the setup, and input the specific biographical details (unique traits) that feed the AI.

    • The UX Focus: Efficiency and emotional relief. The interface must require low cognitive friction for the carer, respecting their limited time and high stress levels.

    2. The End User: The Patient (Sensory Consumer)

    • Who they are: Individuals experiencing early-to-mid stage early-onset dementia.

    • Their role: Primarily passive consumers of the ambient audio and moving portraits.

    • The UX Focus: Intentional simplicity and accessibility. Depending on fluctuating daily cognitive loads, the patient can safely interact with the output without fear of hitting a dead-end, making a mistake, or experiencing a "memory test".
      
      

      The Core Problem

      When early-onset dementia hits, the human connection between a family member and their carer begins to fracture, creating a painful disconnect on both sides:

      • The Carer: You are emotionally depleted. Managing constant confusion, repeating the same answers, and locking doors to keep them safe makes you feel more like a prison warden than a partner or child. You miss the person they used to be.

      • The Patient: The world is becoming terrifying. Being asked "Do you remember this?" feels like an interrogation. Sensing your own mind slip triggers intense panic and shame, so you withdraw into silence to protect your dignity.

      The Human Gap: The carer is too exhausted to connect, and the patient is too scared to try. There is no pressure-free space that lets them just be together and share a quiet moment of recognition.