Project Overview

This project will improve the commercial success of our new product called Top of Mind (TOM™), a personal aide for scheduling and reminding about important daily activities and medications. TOM™ is intended for people with mild cognitive impairment to help them to be self-sufficient. It will help reduce medication errors and hospital visits by improving compliance with prescriptions. It will help older people to age in place by making them more self-sufficient in performing activities of daily living related to caring for themselves. TOM™ is designed also to reduce stress and needs for respite resources for family caregivers. It does it by giving caregivers timely information about how their loved one is doing, involving them directly in scheduling and monitoring activities, and reduce the need for them to travel, especially if they live far from their loved one. We will launch a social media campaign that will make our product known in the social media networks of older people and their caregivers who are potential users. We will examine how TOM™ can improve family caregiver interactions with users about things like giving consent, taking meds, and keeping appointments, without confusing an older adult. We will better attune our marketing messages and materials to the needs and preferences of family caregivers. We will develop reliable and valid measures of outcomes from using TOM™.