iPod Touch as memory aid

Very neat. [Link]

YorkRegion.com spotlighted the story of David Dorey (above), a former radio frequency design engineer who suffered a brain aneurysm in 2004. He's one of many patients who are benefitting from a program pioneered by Baycrest, an Ontario-based company involved in senior care and the study of aging and brain health. The Memory Link program developed by Baycrest equips amnesia patients with the iPod touch and other devices as a surrogate memory to capture, store and retrieve important thoughts.

The patients all have issues making new memories, so teaching them how to use the iPod touch requires structured lessons that stimulate procedural memory -- the place in the brain where repeated actions are stored. Once trained with the iPod touch, patients enter information about what happened during a day so they can recall it later. Some patients actually take photos or videos with their device to remember events they've experienced or people they meet.

I read that and immediately thought of Simon Illyan, from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. He had a chip implanted that gave him an eidetic memory that eventually failed after many years, leaving him with memory problems. He made up for it with what is effectively an iPod Touch:

In a supremely sinister gesture, Illyan pulled an audiofiler from his belt, and murmured this information into it, together with Alexi's full name, the date, time, and location. Illyan returned the audiofiler to its clip with a tiny snap, loud in the silence.

Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold

Technology imitating science fiction.