[Music] hi my name is Grace G I'm a speech language pathologist in Craig Hospital's assistive technology lab today I'm going to be showing you some electronic external cognitive AIDs that we often use with our patients with traumatic brain injuries who are having difficulties with things like memory and executive functioning tasks like planning and organizing external cognitive AIDS are tools that we can use with our patients to help them to build Independence um with these skills that they're h
aving difficulty with tools that we'll recommend for patients that are having difficulty with memory include things like on their smartphone or tablet using a Notes app to write down information about their day that they can refer back to later to help jog their memory without depending on other people to remind them of what happened we're often recommending that people take photographs of things that happen throughout their day this can be really helpful on smartphones too because often times t
hey have a date stamp and a location marked on there which can add some additional information when someone's trying to remember things that happened recently apps that allow you to set alarms on your smartphone can allow someone to remind themselves for things that are happening throughout their day or for different intervals throughout their day so it can remind them to do things like take their medications uh when to leave for certain appointments a third- party application that we're often u
sing at Craig hospital is this journal app called day one day one allows patients to write information and take photographs of events that have happened in a more structured calendar format and as therapists we can add in templates that ask some leading questions that further support someone to write relevant information in their app for example something like where Were You Who was there and write two details about the event that happened when it comes to using assistive technology to support s
omeone with executive functioning difficulties we often start by reducing the visual letter on someone's screen smartphones are naturally very overstimulating um and have a lot going on with a lot of notifications popping up all the time so that's one of the first things that we're looking at so as you can see on this screen I made the important apps that the patient is using larger I've cut out a lot of the extraneous apps on the screen and added them to this miscellaneous folder I've also gone
into settings and silenced a lot of the unnecessary notifications apps that often come on a smartphone by default are ones that we're often using to um help train some skills that patients were likely utilizing prior to their traumatic brain injury we can use things like online calendar apps for someone to be able to keep track of their day as well as apps that allow you to provide reminders or create to-do lists a skill that people with traumatic brain injuries often have a difficult time with
is creating or sticking to daily routines this app can plan is one that we've introduced to a lot of patients that can give someone step-by-step instructions of how to get through that daily routine and provide them some more Independence in doing so the app can cater to people who need real photographs videos um audio and written text in order to remember how to get through that routine so for example you can have routines for your entire morning or you could break it down to more simpler task
s like brushing your teeth get toothbrush wet toothbrush with water put toothpaste on toothbrush brush your teeth if someone is having difficulty navigating a smartphone or a tablet smart speakers can be another great option um to allow someone to still utilize these cognitive supports a lot of the ones that I've shown you can be accessed on a smart speaker through voice commands so for example Alexa what's on my schedule today today there are two events remaining at 1: p.m. there's doctor's app
ointment and at 700 p.m. there's birthday party someone can also use their smart speaker to create reminders for themselves without having to do that manually on a phone or tablet Alexa remind me to take my medicine at 1 p.m. okay I'll create a reminder at 1 p.m. as you can see a lot of the technology that we're already using in our data day lives can be helpful when supporting a person with a traumatic brain injury who has some cognitive deficits that they need to compensate for for more inform
ation about using assistive technology as external cognitive AIDS visit the Craig Hospital assistive technology [Music] website
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