Interview with Chris Benoit co-creator of Promenade
Check out the interview with Chris Benoit (@b3no) below, who along with Alexis Liddel created Promenade (available on the iOS app store).
Tell me about yourselves.
My name is Chris Benoit, and my sister is Alexis Liddell. We’re siblings who were born and raised in Stoney Creek.
Alexis graduated with a degree in Gerontology from McMaster in 2008 and a diploma in Recreation and Leisure Services from Mohawk College in 2010. She’s worked in a number of long-term care homes throughout the city of Hamilton and currently works at Macassa Lodge as a Recreationist.
I graduated from McMaster’s Software Engineering program in 2006. I’ve been working in various software development roles since that time, most recently as a Senior Software Engineer at Autodesk in Toronto. Outside of work, I’ve worked on a number of personal projects mainly around iOS development.
What is Promenade?
Promenade is an iPad app designed for family members and caregivers to use when visiting loved ones living with dementia or related illnesses. It is a tool that can help stimulate conversation, encourage reminiscence, and make personal visits more rewarding.
Why did you decide to create Promenade?
The concept for Promenade was inspired by our own personal experiences with our grandmother. She suffered a stroke about ten years ago and has been in long-term care since that time. Communication of any kind was, and still is, a real challenge. We would often leave visits with her feeling exhausted on account of her not being able to really understand us, and vice versa. At work, Alexis was having great success implementing ‘Reminiscence’ oriented programs with residents suffering from dementia. She would print out photos that corresponded to her residents’ interests and hobbies and would then follow up with conversation-based questions related to each one. When she told me about how well her programs were going at work, we tried using more photos during visits with our grandmother. It wasn’t long before we started brainstorming ideas on how to improve the picture/question combination. We quickly realized that there was a large gap in terms of new technology that could facilitate reminiscence-type programs. We decided that an iPad app would be a great way to improve the social aspects of dementia care.
How does Promenade help people with dementia and their caregivers / family?
Promenade is based on the principles of reminiscence therapy. Reminiscence is a way of thinking back on past activities, events and experiences. It’s a powerful therapeutic approach that often improves mood and brings a person back to a reality they know and more importantly, understand. When living with dementia, less and less of one’s current surroundings make sense. With a dissipating short-term memory, feelings such as confusion, mistrust and anxiety are unfortunately all too common. Through reminiscence therapy, a person with dementia can take pleasure in reviewing positive stories and events from the past.
The app presents groups high-quality images based on user-selected topics. Every topic is accompanied by a list of conversation-based questions, as well as related topic suggestions, to ensure there’s always something to talk about. The photos provide the visual cue needed to help trigger the memories, and the questions provide an opportunity for the visiting family member or caregiver to help expand on that memory and discuss the details surrounding it.
Promenade is an ideal tool not only for family members wishing to spend quality time visiting with their loved ones in long term care, but also for therapeutic recreation professionals looking for new ways to engage clients during one-to-one visits. Since every individual with dementia has different needs, wants and interests, no one-to-one visit is exactly alike. Promenade is the perfect companion for these visits because it can be used with a wide range of people while still giving each person a very individualized experience. Every individual’s interests, passions and memories now have a visual component. They are no longer restricted to traditional recreation resources like photo cards, books, albums or magazines to enhance the reminiscing experience.
Is there any research confirming the effectiveness of reminiscence therapy?
Absolutely. There have been several peer-reviewed research studies conducted over the last 20 years that show the positive and lasting effects of reminiscence therapy. It has been shown to reduce depressive symptoms, improve mood, improve cognitive and behavioural measures, and reduce caregiver strain.
Have you tested Promenade with patients and caregivers? How has Promenade been received so far?
Yes, we have. During our development phase, we provided promo codes to a number of key individuals who either know a relative living with dementia or work closely with that population. Alexis has also used Promenade with her clients at work and with our grandmother. The feedback to date has all been very positive. We constantly hear that this is a long overdue tool in the field of dementia care.
How do you plan on marketing and promoting Promenade?
Our main goal is to promote Promenade in the community of long-term care family members and employees, with a particular focus on Recreation Therapists. We’ll be speaking at two large upcoming conferences (the Canadian Therapeutic Recreation Association and Therapeutic Recreation Ontario), and have recently given presentations to the Alzheimer’s Society and regional Family Council group. We’ve also recently given an interview to CHML on Scott Thompson’s show, and we’ve worked with faculty at Mohawk College and have given talks to the Recreation Therapy students there about the app. In addition, we also plan on contacting various long-term care facilities and local media to spread the word. We’ve created a website (http://promenadeapp.com/) that provides more detail as well as a demo video that illustrates its use.
What tools did you use to build Promenade?
Mainly Xcode for development, Acorn for image editing, SQLite and FMDB for managing data, Git for source control.
We rely on the following services:
Microsoft’s Bing Search API
Google’s Freebase API
Flickr’s Image Tag API
Graphics were licensed from one of the recent Glyphish icon sets.
Why did you choose iOS / iPad as a platform? Will there be an Android version?
We felt that to use this app the way in which it was intended (as a shared experience between two people), a larger screen was necessary. I’ve had much more experience doing iOS development than Android development, and iPads are by far the most common tablet in use today, as opposed to phones where the market share is more evenly divided. Also, we are both doing this separately from our full time jobs, so we wanted to focus on one core experience that would give us the biggest impact for the time we are investing. An Android version is probably not likely anytime soon, but it’s always a possibility for down the road.
Where do you see Promenade going in the future?
We imagine Promenade continuing to improve via incremental updates to its database of questions and topics. We also plan on adding more features around offline usage, and the ability to incorporate personal photos. But right now we’re quite happy with the features the product currently provides, and are mostly interested in promoting the current iteration of it. Ideally, we would like to see it become a standard tool for dementia care in long-term care homes around the world and for caregivers whose relatives are living with the disease.
How can the local community help you make Promenade a success?
Most people know, or knows of, someone who is living with dementia or a similar illness. Whether it’s via a personal connection (e.g. a grandparent) or if you are working directly with this population, we would love for the community to try out Promenade or spread the word about it. Take the app with you on a visit and try it out. As I mentioned, we’re always making incremental improvements, so please provide us with your feedback (and let us know how the visit went!).
