Today’s blog is going to be a little different from my usual material, and the reason for that will probably become obvious quite quickly.
Regular readers will know that one of the main drivers behind my own interest in optimising health and longevity — whether that is exercise, diet, supplements, blood pressure, cholesterol, or anything else — is my mum. She is only 81, but she has had fairly rapidly progressive dementia over the past couple of years. She is now in a nursing home, no longer recognises me, and is increasingly unable to speak in sentences that are recognisable.
As you can imagine, this has been very hard. It has also meant that I have had to provide a lot of support to my dad. In a strange way, that has actually brought us closer together. We now speak three or four times a week, which is certainly more than we did throughout much of my adult life.
Dad is 75 as I write this. He has never really been sporty or especially active, although after a fair bit of encouragement from me he has at least started doing some very light weight training over the past year or so. But he is also very much of a generation that tends simply to “get on with it”. By that I mean he will still think nothing of climbing a ladder to sort out a roof tile, or cutting a branch off a tree that needs trimming, without necessarily stopping to think whether this is quite such a good idea.
That worries me more now than it once did. When Mum was still at home, if something happened to him, at least there was somebody else there who could raise the alarm. Now he lives alone, and if he were to slip, have an accident, or become unwell and not be able to get to his phone, I might not know anything about it.
Added to that is the fact that he has had a couple of TIAs in the past. On one occasion he had expressive dysphasia, meaning he could not get his words out properly. So even if I were to speak to him, I might not immediately understand what was happening. All of this has left me increasingly aware of how fragile independence can be, particularly when somebody is still managing well, still living at home, and still outwardly “coping”.
For a few months, we tried to solve this in a very simple way. We agreed that we would send each other a text message at a certain time each day, just to confirm that he was okay. Not necessarily a full conversation, not a major check-in, just a simple signal to say all is well.
The problem, of course, is that life gets in the way. One or both of us would forget, remember later, or only realise the next day that the message had never been sent. At which point the whole thing rather defeats the object.
I looked at a few apps to see whether something like this already existed in a form that felt simple and practical, but I could not find anything that quite did what I wanted. So in the end, I decided to create it.
Over the last few months, I have been working with an IT developer to build an app designed to do one very specific job, and to do it simply. It is now essentially ready for beta testing, and I am looking for around 10 volunteers who might be willing to try it and give me some honest feedback.
The idea is deliberately straightforward. Two people download the app onto their phones. One person might be a carer, but that label is customisable because in my case I am obviously not Dad’s carer — I am simply someone who wants to know that he is okay. The user chooses a time of day for the check-in. The other person receives an invitation to sign up. Then, at the chosen time, they get a notification on their phone prompting them to check in. They tap to confirm, and the other person knows they are okay.
That is really it.
You can change the time. You can add reminders. You can tailor the wording. But the whole point is simplicity. It is not meant to replace conversation, care, or common sense. It is simply meant to make that quiet daily reassurance easier and more reliable.
At this stage, I am not really writing this as a big commercial launch. Of course, I hope that in time it may become something genuinely useful for many people. But right now, what I need most is feedback. I have tested it myself, but before putting it properly onto the App Store I would like a small number of real users to try it in real life and tell me what works, what does not, and what needs changing.
The first version is for Apple devices only, so for now both people would need to have an iPhone. The plan is absolutely to develop an Android and google version too. The code has been written in a way that will allow that, but we wanted to test one platform properly first rather than trying to do everything at once.
What has struck me as I have worked on this is that there are probably many more uses for something like this than I first appreciated. It might be an elderly parent living alone. It might be a partner. It might be a sibling, a friend, or someone recovering from illness. Sometimes we simply want to know that someone is okay without turning that into a formal call or a daily obligation to have a full conversation. Sometimes it is the smallest signals that matter most.
So this week’s blog is a little less about cholesterol, blood pressure, or exercise physiology, and a little more about relationships, caring, independence, and the practical realities of modern family life. For all our advances in medicine and technology, one of the most important human needs remains very simple: knowing that the people we love are safe.
If you think you might be interested in beta testing the app, hit reply, and I’ll pick the first 10 or so responders and let you know next steps. Please note if I receive many replies I may not be able to answer all!
This week’s research video looks at a deeply worrying trend in the UK: although people are living longer, they are spending fewer of those years in good health. ‘Healthspan’ is a term I think about a lot. It’s the healthy years of life that we all want. I explore the latest figures on healthy life expectancy, why this matters so much for individuals, families, and the NHS, and why I believe we are sleepwalking into a major public health problem unless we take prevention, lifestyle, and healthy ageing far more seriously.