From adversity to opportunity: Saudi woman creates Alzheimer’s app

Her grandmother's experience with Alzheimer’s disease inspired Saudi woman Rawad Sheikh Alshabab to develop an application for smart phones that helps enhance the lives of Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.
“I was motivated to chase after this invention mainly because I wanted to spread awareness and knowledge about this disease in the Gulf region and the Middle East,” said the 27-year-old Alshabab.
“We lack adequate medical care centers for Alzheimer’s patients that provide support on the social and emotional levels. When people hear someone’s got Alzheimer’s disease, they vanish from the patient’s life, thinking it’s contagious. They don’t know that the patient needs psychological assistance to help lessen the suffering.”
The application “touching care” is available in Apple store for $ 0.99. Moreover, it is accessible in four different languages: Arabic, English, Spanish and French.
The application supports the patients by helping them stimulate their minds through memory boosting games, old photographs, a movie player and an audio studio.
“When the symptoms of the disease began to develop, I wanted to do everything possible to make the experience less aggressive on my grandma. This disease is on the rise and tests have shown that it is increasing in the Kingdom.”
Additionally, specialists and doctors who work in Alzheimer’s care centers can use this application, as it organizes social appointments and the hours medication pills need to be taken and most importantly it monitors the patient’s progress.
In March 2011, Alshabab won the Seed Fund Program Entrepreneurs award, selected from among 300 other contestants, including scientists, researchers, professors and students in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
She earned her bachelor degree in Management Information System (MIS) from Dar Al-Hekma.
Graduating as an honor student from Dar Al-Hekma opened many doors for Alshabab, including the lifetime opportunity of a full scholarship from KAUST to complete her masters. Accordingly, she received her master’s degree in High Performance Computing (HPC) in Dec. 2010 and upon graduation she developed the application for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.
Alshabab’s main goal is to spread awareness and teach caregivers how to deal with Alzheimer’s patients in a caring, tender and appropriate manner.
Before launching the application, Alshabab traveled around the world to conduct the necessary research about Alzheimer’s disease. “I went to Geneva, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Beirut, where I attended conferences about Alzheimer’s. What I noticed most was how almost every doctor complained of wasting time in asking the patients questions that took time up to 45 minutes; a huge waste of time. The doctors were unable to balance their time between patients.”
However, Alshabab received plenty of positive feedback when she used her application in experiments.
Many prominent hospitals, like the American University in Beirut and the University of Geneva Hospital were enthusiast and supportive.
“One of the doctors in IMC hospital in Jeddah, was fond of the morphological method in treating patients through this application, as it reduces the deterioration of the patient’s condition.”
Alshabab is preparing for the next challenging stage in her exciting journey toward making history. She is one of the semi finalists at the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition. The final competition will take place in Al-Dawha for three days starting from Apr. 23.
The competitors will share their projects with the committee and the winner will be granted SR 50,000.
“In the end, it doesn’t matter who wins or who doesn’t. The competition itself offers rich experiences; I’m very excited,” she said, adding, “We have to try over and over again, even when we fail. Determination and willpower motivated me to reach this stage of my life.”