DOGFI.SH Mobile teams up with Tayside community to launch I Have Aphasia app

Published: 3-Jul-2017

Mobile app designed to help improve education, understanding, and communication around aphasia

Stirling-based DOGFI.SH Mobile has partnered with Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust’s ST/ART Project and the Tap and Talk Aphasia iPad group at the University of Dundee to launch a new app designed to assist people living with aphasia in better communicating their condition to others.

Aphasia is a complex language and communication disorder resulting from damage to the language centres of the brain.

This damage may be caused by a stroke, a head injury, a brain tumour or another neurological illness and it is estimated that it affects more than 350,000 people in Britain.

The I Have Aphasia app, which was created in partnership with people who are living with aphasia in Tayside, shows a short animated film outlining the key communication difficulties those with aphasia face.

This film is a tool that people with aphasia can share with others to explain the challenges they face, with the animation illustrating how people can assist anyone with aphasia through understanding and patience.

The app was created following an eight-week programme in which members of the group shared their personal experiences of aphasia and worked with a professional animator who directed the production of a film and the short app animation.

The creation of the easy-to-use app reinforces how simple technologies can have the power to create real change in people’s lives

Following this, DOGFI.SH Mobile supported the initiative free of charge by reconfiguring the animation to function as a free, downloadable app available on iOS platforms, which can be easily shared by aphasia sufferers to educate others on the condition.

DOGFI.SH Mobile chief executive, Ross Tuffee, said: “The creation of the easy-to-use app reinforces how simple technologies can have the power to create real change in people’s lives.

“Aphasia can be an incredibly-debilitating condition and when we were approached about supporting the project we knew it was something we wanted to be involved in right from the start.

“Critically, having that direct engagement with Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust’s ST/ART Project and the Tap and Talk Aphasia iPad group, meant we could build an app to suit the very people it serves, ensuring it was both simple to use yet engaging.

“For an aphasia sufferer, it gives them a tool to share with others that not only communicates the issues they face, but also illustrates how these challenges can be overcome through understanding and patience.”

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