How to make AppleTV accessible to people with age-related dementia

My 92-year old mother in law just moved in with us. I set up an Apple TV 4K for her, but it's clear that all of the things that make this platform so futuristic for most cognitively high functioning people, are just barriers to people like her, with no lived experience using this type of technology, and who no longer have the cognitive function necessary to learn a new interaction model. For example, if you are used to changing TV channels (with simple channel up and down buttons), learning how to use the Siri Remote to switch apps is not accessible to you. Swiping, using a direction click wheel, navigating smartphone-like grids of apps - all inaccessible. My mother in law has a very thick foreign accent, but is no longer fluent in her native language, and is unwilling to learn voice navigation - even if Siri could parse her speech successfully, again, learning to disambiguate failed voice search commands is literally not on the menu for her.

I feel Apple has done a fantastic job of making a mainstream TV viewing product with the Apple TV, but has not considered or provided a UI mode for this large (and growing) category of users. Given how much of her day is spent watching television, and how much control the device gives us to provide her with just the content she wants to consume, it's frustrating that there isn't better support for this use case.

If you know of a product - an Apple TV app or maybe a third party remote, or perhaps a feature that has made it possible for a person with dementia to use the Apple TV, please respond. Thank you.

Apple TV 4K (2nd generation)

Posted on Dec 26, 2023 7:04 AM

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How to make AppleTV accessible to people with age-related dementia

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