Biomechanical engineer Anne-Christine Hertz is doing some extremely interesting non-invasive treatments to help dementia patients, which most HardOCP readers will soon be, remember. She has put together highly interesting computer hardware setup that let’s these guys ride their “bikes” around places they might have been familiar with previously, in order to shake loose some of the cobwebs and gain access to those memories once again. Sort of like when you drank all that tequila…then 3 weeks later someone said, “Remember the blowup doll?” and bam! It all comes flooding back. Just like that but without the tequila, blowup doll, and the shame. Thanks cageymaru.



Anne-Christine was trying to develop new methods to treat Alzheimer’s patients and those suffering from dementia. Specifically, she wanted to help them preserve old memories. Memory loss is one of the most traumatic side effects of dementia, both for patients and their loved ones.

To combat this, she built a prototype called BikeAround, which pairs a stationary bike with Google Street View to take dementia patients on a virtual ride down memory lane. Patients input a street address of a place that means something to them – a childhood home for instance – and then use the pedals and handlebars to “bike around” their old neighborhoods.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – BikeAround in Your Brain – Break Dementia