Kodak’s artificial intelligence tool, “Memory Shots,” enables people with dementia to visually reconstruct their memories with images, and can help get them talking about the past.
Users visit the website to create their own AI-generated photos of memories. To do so, they only need to type in a short description of the memory. The tool then prompts the user for the time period when the incident took place. With that information, Memory Shots generates several possible images, produced in a style consistent with photos from the Kodak camera that was available that year.
The tool may help caregivers to start a conversation with their patient, parent or other loved one.
The Kodak creative team partnered with Belgian agency Happiness to develop and market the tool. The partners reviewed research on reminiscence therapy, which incorporates certain cues — like music or images — to trigger memories in people who have neurodegenerative conditions. The therapy has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety and depression.
“What we noticed is that dementia is also a problem of communication, because at a certain point communication just stops,” Geoffrey Hantson, chief creative officer of Happiness, said in an article on Medical Marketing and Media. “The second thing we noticed,” Hantson said, “is that sometimes [people with dementia] have a fantastic, cherished memory, but there is no picture of the memory.”
“My father, for example, had a beautiful memory about how he had a horse when he was a child, but there aren’t any pictures of that,” Hantson continued. “So we initially thought, ‘What if we could create pictures from memories where no picture exists? How would patients react?’”
The team in Belgium worked with researchers and professors specializing in dementia to gather feedback to improve the product for patients.
“And they said, ‘Well, it could be an add-on, or an enrichment of the existing photo-reminiscence therapy,’” Hantson said. “They were involved from step one to the very end. They all said that it could increase quality of life [for patients].”
When people started using the tool, conversations became much more in depth, longer, detailed and emotional.
Researchers are planning to study Memory Shots to see if it triggers longer conversations and memories among dementia patients.
