A Techstars Kansas City alum is gaining traction for its MoodSpark digital companion for seniors, which combines a smart display with a digital assistant to address chronic loneliness and dementia.
Telememory, based in Kansas City, Kansas, developed the product, which recently scored a pilot project with Delmar Gardens Enterprises and $21,500 from the Kansas Innovation & Technology Enterprise (KITE) program.
“It’s really validating relative to the problem we’re trying to solve in the market,” Telememory founder and CEO Eliot Arnold said of the KITE funding. “The whole committee is supportive of our vision and what we’re trying to do in the state.”
Telememory's MoodSpark, for example, could be a tool for the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services to reach more people in rural, remote areas of the state, he said.
MoodSpark uses several types of technology to detect patterns of stress and sadness, including computer vision, audio sentiment analysis and algorithms for detecting facial expressions. The digital companion can respond to one’s mood and improve it by using personalized conversational queues, video visits from family and friends, and content suggestions designed to spark emotional memory recall.
The KITE funding will go toward MoodSpark’s three-month pilot with Delmar’s retirement and assisted-living facility in Lenexa. The pilot kicks off in January and will be used with a minimum of 25 residents and their families. Like other senior care facilities, Delmar has been challenged with caregiver turnover and views MoodSpark as a potential tool to support staff and reduce workload and stress. MoodSpark could take the place of some redirection techniques caregivers normally use when a resident is experiencing a stressful moment, Arnold said.
After the pilot, Telememory will publish its research, and if the product proves useful to caregivers, Delmar plans to extend its deployment of the technology.
In addition to state funding, Telememory also previously received investments from Techstars and Yucatan Rock Ventures.
For Arnold, MoodSpark is personal. His late father, who had dementia and Alzheimer’s, was the catalyst for the startup.
“I built this business out of personal need. My father was chronically lonely, and it had a major impact on his health,” he said. “We struggled with ways to keep him happy and engaged and connected with us when we couldn’t be there in person.”
Nearly 50% of seniors in the U.S. report being chronically lonely, he said, and MoodSpark wants to be the “Life Alert for support and companionship.”
“The way we’re thinking about this is it’s a real evolution of the human and computer interaction,” Arnold said. “We can’t take a human connection out of care, support and companionship, but we can add to it and enable it using AI and AI that’s focused on sensing and responding to mood.”
