That's What You Call a Screen Saver
Carole Mulliken, 59, spends a lot of time in front of a computer in her home in Washington, Mo. So do Charley Schneider in nearby O'Fallon and Jaye Lander, 60, of Lancaster, Pa., who hosts a chat every Monday afternoon on the websiteof the dementia."
All three of these people have early-onset dementia, and they and many people like them have found the computer and the online world to be an unexpected aide. Not just for social support but to boost their memories. "I work on E-mail a lot," says Schneider. "For those of us with memory problems, that thread of replies–the Re: Re: Re:–becomes our memory. We can scroll up to the start to remember where we've been and what other people have said."
Add a tail. "The computer is great assistive technology," says Mulliken, who has trouble with visual memory. "Often, I couldn't find my mouse cursor on the screen. But Windows lets me make it bigger and add a tail, so it's easy to find." She uses the Outlook Calendar to keep track of all her appointments, setting one reminder a full day in advance and another just a few hours before. If she has to, say, fast before a doctor's appointment, she puts in a prompt for that, too. "We often suggest things like notepads and putting things in the same place all the time," says Yaakov Stern, a neuropsychologist and dementia specialist at Columbia University. "But patients themselves are often more clever than their doctors and come up with better strategies like these."
Staying connected to the world in this way is crucial to her mental health, Mulliken says, as the isolation that comes with the diagnosis of dementia is "just devastating." Mulliken lost her colleagues when she quit her job and can no longer do arts and crafts. "I was stuck at home, because when I went out, I got lost," she says. "So instead, I get on the Internet and talk to people and research more information about dementia."
This story appears in the December 11, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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