Emily Yang

When Emma Yang was 7 or 8 years old, her grandmother became increasingly forgetful. Over the next few years, those memory problems, caused by early Alzheimer’s disease, worsened. Yang, who learned to code at an early age, decided to create an app to help.
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“I have personal experience with how the disease can affect not only the patient, but also family and friends. When I was about 11 or 12, I got really interested in using technology for social good to help other people around the world,” says Yang, who is now 14.
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In her app under development, called Timeless, Alzheimer’s patients can scroll through photos of friends and family, and the app will tell them who the person is and how they’re related to the patient using facial recognition tech. If a patient doesn’t recognize someone in the same room, they can take a picture and the tech will also try to automatically identify them.
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The app is still in development, and Yang doesn’t yet have proof that it will work. In a crowdfunding campaign, she’s raising money to take the next step of piloting it with patients. But she is optimistic that it can help, especially if introduced to someone in the early stages of the disease.
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Scrolling through the labeled photos, Katherine Possin, an associate professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center who was not involved with the project says, can be a type of social activity for the patient, helping keep family members and friends in mind. It also could strengthen memory. “I think it can be very helpful for patients to rehearse memories that are important to them–having a chance to rehearse that can strengthen those memories and make them stronger and make them more resilient in the face of the disease.”

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