BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?

Subject: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 07:04 PM

OK here's the project

to use a laptop as a picture frame/show + clock + window.

The man is 90+ and gets disoriented on which part of the day it is so we need a large clock face with day of week and show which part of the day it is (morn, noon, evening, lunch dinner, supper etc)

I thought a cheap (2nd hand) laptop and a bit of s/w. Excel - can do it I have enough VBA already to see how to get started. The analogue clock face will be a challenge - though a full-screen clock program would be better. Anyone know any?

Then I thought pictures - again easy in Excel (or VB) - a slide show of his deceased wife, new additions to the family, relative in Spain etc. say changing once in 5 mins.

Then I thought (you can see the $$$ racking up) a PC good enough to work a webcam (via Wifi) so the camera can be sited looking at his farm he worked on until 5 years ago ( and shuffled round until a year ago). eg a new (movable) window without punching holes in walls.

The problem is that since his wife died he spends a lot of time looking out the window barely leaving his living room. Cars going by are not that interesting. Silent movies or TV he is not that bothered with.

How much notice he would take of a clock with pictures is a moot point but if it is always there on the wall and has some personal interest - just maybe the regularity will at least slow down the deteriation.

And I am being told by his daughter to book a week at Sidmouth Festival and my crystal ball is somewhat cloudy right now - this is a gamble but........

What else could I use the PC for in this context. (neither he nor she would use it as a computer)
All ideas considered - well the computer ones anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 08:23 PM

There used to be heaps of free - or sharware clock progs around - try some of the repositories.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 08:57 PM

I assume you're using Windows.

You could also take a LOT of digital pictures that he might enjoy and set them up as a screen saver slide show.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 09:17 PM

Kudos, Mr. Red, on thinking of this and working on angles. What goes 'round comes 'round; I predict a happy old age for you.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:29 PM

What Rapaire said. I have my screensaver set up with all of my photos as a slide show. We never get tired of it; my grandson loves seeing all of his baby pix. You can also scan pix in, if you don't have a digicam. You could also make pictures with text so that they would go by in the slide show.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:48 PM

What about one of those constantly changing, never the same underwater tropical fish screen savers? The newer ones look almost like photographs instead of like cartoons.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 02:14 AM

Mr Red
Its very hard to motivate a person of 90 if they don't want to be motivated.
I have the same problem with my mother who is 90. I have tried all sorts of things and non of them have worked.
The only thing I have managed to achieve, is getting a radio/casstte/CD playerand she uses it and listens to Radio Lincolnshire only if the staff at the nursing home or visitors put the headphones on. At the same time, i bought a large screen TV with DVD and Video for her bedroom. Again that works if the Staff put things on for her.
What she likes more than anything is her family visiting her and being taken out for a roll in her wheelchair.
Other than that she just seems contented to let the world go by.
Its very upsetting to see it happening, but I reckon I have achieved all I am going to with her.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 05:07 AM

Joy did say I would have more effect if I sat with him and put my progs on telly.

Hmmm - she doesn't sit with him because he is so negative (always has been) and she has enough to deal with as it (you really really don't want the details.). I just hope he likes motorbikes.


I will loose a day per week. Oh well. Computer first. It's not as if it is intended as his sole interest - just has to be there in the vain hope he gets some regularity to his life while we can't be there.

Screen savers I hadn't hought of - maybe an active desktop instead would be better. As a fallback position in the unlikely event that Micr$oft s/w should crash...................

Mr Red says NO to Vista.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 06:00 AM

There is a programming language called REBOL, invented by the bloke who did major work on the old Commodore Amiga operating system. It is designed to do a lot of things without all the bloat and crud that Windows needs to use.
Like JAVA it runs on all main computing platforms, but reckons to be easier to programme.
It was designed from scratch to be extremely small to install and run. It has built into it stuff for using internet and also to make it easy to produce powerful graphic displays. Programmes are written using plain text and can be easily edited to customise somebody else's stuff for your own purposes.
Mostly it is a hobby/geek thing, but might do just what you need.

REBOL Home Site
Rebol Geek Site

REBOL
Have a look!
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 01:13 PM

clock that does all I need

programming is no problem - I am well up the learning curve on VBA and I reckon it will only take about 100 lines of code - most of the boring stuff is done by Excel like lists and time comparison.

I have it saying messages and displaying pics. the content thereof is not of my choosing.

the rest is colour etc so that it mirrors the time of day and doesn't glare at night.

Webcam will wait. Still looking for the laptop - it has to fold flat to stick on the wall and a lot of them go to 10 or 15 degrees. And I need to switch off the HDD in VBA at night etc.
Anyway it is doable - what it achieves is another matter.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 01:25 AM

Why dont you just get a an LCD TV with built in DVD player.

You could then make DVD's that you could change on a regular basis. Can you make em loop.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 02:56 AM

Mr Red -

If you're using WinXP you don't need a program to give a pretty decent slide show. Just go to Start|Settings|Control Panel, Double-click Display, Click the Screen Saver Tab and select the "My Pictures" choice. At the Settings button, put the folder name in where you've got a bunch of pictures (I prefer jpg) and the screen saver will flip through whatever pictures are in the folder. The only real glitch is that the default is to randomize the order in which the pictures are shown. (a little extra stimulation for the eldster?).

With an older OS, if you want to show slides you will likely find it simpler just to get a freeware screen saver. You might also take a look at something like Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0 which is !!FREE!! and I believe makes a pretty good slide show from any pictures you've got handy.

If you have access to Power Point on another machine for making Power Point slide shows, you can download the !!FREE!! Power Point Reader from Microsoft's Office site to use to show slide shows on the laptop.

As to what kinds of pictures would interest a 70 y.o. voyeur viewer, I've got a couple of years to go before I can give you an authoritative opinion, but stick around for a while ....

John

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 02:56 AM

Ahh yes... you did say 90 y.o..

I've always been a bit precocious, perhaps.

John

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 06:57 AM

IrfanView worked on all pre-XP boxes - it is free and will show any graphic file, and play any sound file, as well as show simple text files (as a graphic file!). You can set up slide shows, and save them to files - even fire it up via a .BAT file linked to a shortcut, so you can set up several different slide shows.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: aussiebloke
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 09:23 AM

I'm using IrfanView on an XP box - works fine. Great little program for viewing graphics as a slide show.

Download free from here: http://www.irfanview.com/.

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: GUEST,WYS
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 12:32 PM

I have some experience with this.

Best approach I have used, seen, and heard about is conversation about pictures. Viewing the pictures themselves can have the result of sending a person further into an isolated and/or stupefied worldview. It's the interaction about the pix-- family pix of colorful magazine pix-- that do the trick.

If you can't be there to do that, phone calls about printed pix that can be handled during conversation might work. Home visits from local volunteer agencies can sometimes be arranged.

And what is workably helpful abot pix-conversation has nothing to do with "right" answers and everything to do with responding to ANY answer offered, to elicit more memory, more replies. If one persists despite the nonsense one thinks one is getting, very often a breakthrough either in one's understanding or in the actual answering abilities of the elder can happen and can be sustained for long stretchs of lucidity. What they like is talking, and being heard, and responding back and forth no matter what the "content."

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: PC ideas 2 exercise mind of 90 year old?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 07:36 PM

"What they like is talking, and being heard, and responding back and forth no matter what the "content.""

It's the interaction - just like with a child starting to talk. My mum, after recovering for the critical list, seemed to start off at about 8 years old, then gradually seemed to regain her age and much of her memories - but I was never really sure.