The test any aid has to pass
Before you buy anything, ask one question: does this work if nobody remembers it exists? A clock passes, because it is simply visible. A whiteboard passes, because it lives where the kettle is. An app on a phone that has to be opened does not pass, and no amount of good design changes that.
The short list that tends to survive
- A large day and date clock, in the room where the day is spent.
- One whiteboard by the kettle with today's plan in three lines, wiped and rewritten each morning.
- A photo list by the phone: name, relationship, number, in that order.
- Plain, large labels on four or five cupboards — no more.
- A single visible place for keys, glasses and purse, chosen once and never changed.
- A wall calendar with visits marked in thick pen, positioned at eye height.
What usually ends up in a drawer
- Anything needing a passcode, an update or charging.
- Laminated multi-page instructions.
- Smart speakers introduced after the difficulties began, rather than before.
- Aids that were somebody else's good idea and were never wanted.
The gap none of them fill
Every aid on the list is passive. It waits. That is fine for orientation and for the layout of a kitchen, and it is not enough for anything that has to happen at a particular time — a drink in the afternoon, a call from a grandchild at four, a bin out on Thursday.
It also leaves you no wiser. You still finish the day guessing, and the guessing is often heavier than the practical work.
Where we come in
You Care Reminders is the active half: a short message written in your own words, arriving as a call, a text or a phone alert at a time you set, with one button to tap. You see that it landed. Nobody has to learn anything.
Two or three a day is plenty. Used alongside a clock and a whiteboard, that covers most of what families are actually worrying about.
The wider picture
around 982,000
people are estimated to be living with dementia in the UK.
Source: Alzheimer's Society
5.0 million
people in England and Wales provide unpaid care, according to the 2021 Census.