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Episode 4: Memory with Sarah Rudebeck (a science one)
391 Plays4 days ago
Max is joined by Sarah Rudebeck, who studied memory as a clinical psychologist, noticed how many bad products there are out there to support memory (or not) and decided to build her own!
The paper we talk about is https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7210977/
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Exchange
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the ADHD UK podcast. I'm Max Davey. I'm Jamie Gordon. Sorry. Oh, it's fine. Guys, we're be all right right. All is well.
00:00:19
Speaker
um How is everybody apart from apart from i'm sorry you jumping in? I'm sorry. I wasn't sure. oh yeah dear How are you, Jamie? Oh, fantastic. Thank you very much. I'm having a a great day.
00:00:32
Speaker
Good. and Lauren, how are you doing? I'm very well, thank you. Have a lovely evening. Good. I'm terrible. Let's move on from that quickly, as quickly as possible.
Memory and ADHD: An Overview
00:00:45
Speaker
um um what We're going to we're goingnna talk about memory, um in case you've forgotten. ah And we're going to talk today, I talked to Sarah Rudabeck, who is a clinical psychologist. So i quite a lot of research into memory, into um working memory specifically, and various kinds of
00:01:07
Speaker
brain training spoiler it doesn't work um and um she's very interesting partly because she's got a really strong research background and she sort of sent me a paper about which i i can post in the show notes um about working memory and its relationship to adhd but well i just we explained it but in the in the interview, but broadly speaking, so working memory is the kind of bit, the bit of your memory that tells you what why you've walked into this room and what it is you should be doing now, as opposed to um as opposed to the sort of other kinds of memory, which are facts or remembering, you know, what happened yesterday. think,
00:01:52
Speaker
i think that and that's the sort of memory that people they actually tend to be pretty bad at i think it's fair to say um so one of the questions is well how do we get better how do we or at least rather either get better or how do we compensate for our weakness in this area um so lauren you've you've listened to the um the interview Yeah, it was brilliant. And I've also been um testing out the Recallify app as well. So I'm very excited to talk about that. So we can get some feedback after the interview on the app. And that's the other thing that she's done. She's looked at the problems. She's looked at the science and she's tried to come up with a solution of outburn something that will help.
00:02:39
Speaker
Solution is probably a little bit too much. But um ah yeah, so so fantastic, inspiration sort of inspirational kind of, story as well as ah a really interesting chat and ah and and a great product, I think, probably. ah So ah without further ado, let's interview Sarah.
Sarah Rudabeck's Background and Work
00:03:00
Speaker
So welcome to the ADHD UK podcast, Sarah Rudabeck. Hello. Hi. Thanks very much for and allowing me to come and join you. it's allowing you. I'm not sure that's quite what's happening. I know. the waving my permission and we're We're always delighted to see people from the psychology field. um But i what I'd like to do is is just get you to introduce yourself and then we can get on with talking about what we were going to talk about.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm a clinical psychologist. um I specialise in something called neuropsychology. So this is the field where we're interested in people's cognitive abilities. So I work in the NHS and often I'm working with people with either neurodevelopmental conditions, which includes ADHD, and also people with neurological conditions. And that's where you've had a medical thing happen that caused impact to your cognitive abilities.
00:03:53
Speaker
So that's my kind of area of specialty. um I did lots of other things before I entered clinical work. So I also did a PhD in memory disorders the past when I was younger from Oxford University. So yeah, I do lots of different things. And um now i I continue to work in the NHS. Like I said, I specialize in paediatrics in the NHS. And I also work a little bit independently with
Understanding Working Memory and ADHD
00:04:20
Speaker
adults.
00:04:20
Speaker
And I also have set up an app called Recallify, which I'll talk a little bit about today. Yes, little spoiler there for for the for the the end of the the end of the session. So you wanted to talk about memory and I was really, when you emailed me um to to talk about coming on, I was really intrigued by the the sort of things you were saying about working memory and and how that actually works because, well, anyway, tell tell us first how how working what working memory is as opposed to other sorts of memory.
00:04:52
Speaker
Working memory is, ah something that we use a lot talk about in research and the clinic. However, I think most people in late times would call it short term memory. So this is your ability to hold information in your mind and do something with it immediately.
00:05:10
Speaker
So the typical tasks that people talk about that use your working memory are things like mental arithmetic, for example, you've got to hold all the numbers in your head, add them them together and create something. So working memory is that ability to hold information in your mind and do something with it, like absolutely on the go.
00:05:28
Speaker
And this is something that we see can be a particular issue for people with ADHD and also other types of neurological condition. And I guess the thing that I've noticed in the clinic is often that people come in and talk to me.
00:05:41
Speaker
They want to have an assessment from me. And, you know, we're talking about why they need an assessment. And very commonly, people with ADHD, or maybe not yet diagnosed with ADHD, say to me, I've got a memory problem. They come in and say, I've got this memory problem. I can't remember anything. And I do this very large neuropsychology assessment, and I look at their memory, I look at their attention, I look at their intellectual ability, I look at their working memory. And at the end of that, normally what we see, particularly if someone has ADHD or a condition like that, is that they absolutely do not have a memory problem. Their memory is working absolutely fine. The issue is with attention and working memory. So it's almost like so working memory of the gatekeepers to allow information into your episodic memory systems.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, so what you've got this distinction between episodic memory, which is what happened last week when the Battle of Hastings was, I don't know why that one came up, there you go. fuck um You know, those sorts of things. That's a very dad thing, you know, to kind of fixate on a battle. um um Versus the, where you know, where do I put my keys, kind of, or what am what am I supposed to be doing now in this room kind of thing.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it's also, and so episodic memory, confusingly, then goes into different things, which almost you've talked about there. Some are semantic memories, which are your fact-based memories, so when the Battle Hastings goes, do you see what mean? But some are your event based episodic memory. So like remembering where you were when you were taught when the battle of Hastings was. So we can all time travel back in our minds can't we to particular events and times that are important to us. That's actually seen as a kind of different type of memory, kind of event episodic memory.
00:07:29
Speaker
But no, what I'm talking about, you know I'm not talking about episodic memory really as an issue in people with ADHD. Normally we see it's great, it's intact, it's a kind of real skill people have actually, but actually what they're struggling with is their attentional gatekeeping almost into that system and also your working memory, which obviously has to hold information initially before it can be pushed into your episodic memory system.
Attention's Role in Memory Processing
00:07:55
Speaker
Could you just explain what you mean by attentional gatekeeping? Well, if you think about it like a funnel, if you don't ah if you don't have attention onto something, it can't properly be encoded in your brain. so if you think about memory is three stages, encoding, number one, which we think is done in the hippocampus, and then consolidation, which is probably hippocampal moving into your frontal lobes, and then retrieval when you need it, yeah, you kind of take it back out of your brain again.
00:08:25
Speaker
So we need to get to the first stage, we need to get to encoding. And your attention is almost like a spotlight onto what you are going to take into your brain, what you're going to encode in. And often what I see and what people are telling me is, and nicely there is some research to back this up that we can go on talk about, is that you need that kind of attentional spotlight to be properly focused in so that that information can go into your brain and you can remember it in the future.
00:08:57
Speaker
So it's almost like, you know, you have to focus on something long enough to write it in the book of your head. I know that memory is not literally a book. It's a really good way of using it. Like, what nice metaphor. Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:09
Speaker
um Okay, so that's very neatly done. um You did send me that paper, and I sort of i sort ofve got most of my head around it. I don't know how much of it we need to talk about, but I was really interested in this kind of this concept of binding. Is that relevant to to sort of ADHD, or is that just something that I picked up along the way?
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think binding I get a bit confused about as well, frankly. um I guess the paper that we talked about, and but maybe we can work our way through it. So the paper that I kind of looked up and I think is speaking to this experience that I've heard people talk about for like, you know, 10 or 15 years in clinic and what I've seen, you know, after assessing them is that this paper is showing that People with, they've done an EEG study. and So that's looking at your kind of brain wave or activity. So you've got all these EEGs stuck on your head, basically. So they're measuring your brain waves at the same time as you're doing a task.
00:10:12
Speaker
So they were getting people to do like a memory task, weren't they? And they were doing ADHD people and people like a control group in comparison. So what they found was that people who have ADHD seem to have a reduced something called the p three which is a but event related potential. And that's just a smart way of saying brain activity um in a specific area of your brain, which people think, during doing loads of different research, is linked to decision making and your attention. So you need that P3 to help you kind of have attention and decision making on something. So they saw that this ADHD group had a ah kind of smaller P3 signal, which
00:10:56
Speaker
Then after they did this memory test, they basically got people to do a memory test and see how they did. They kind of said that people with this smaller P3, they have, they think, less attention onto this um working memory task, were then going on to do worse at
Strategies for Memory Improvement
00:11:15
Speaker
it. you see what I mean? They were like, their performance was worse. And they felt this was due to this information has not got in properly because this P3 is reduced in the first place.
00:11:27
Speaker
Okay. So there's ah there's a sort of neurological thing that isn't triggering in in people with ADHD that that other for other people it it can. And we can probably put binding aside for now. i just thought it was quite interesting. I'm trying to get my head around it. i i think the binding bit in the paper, but yeah, but you tell me what you took out of it. I thought they said that people's binding ADHD versus controls was the same. So I thought they thought their memory binding was the same.
00:11:56
Speaker
but it was no but I suppose I thought the binding itself was an interesting phenomenon that I hadn't really realised was part of how you do this encoding business, that you sort of clump everything together in a single, almost like tell a story to yourself of what everything is and how it all relates to each other that makes it easier to remember a lot of things at once. And you're right, they well as far as I could understand the paper, people with ADHD do do that just as well. So maybe this is a bit of a red herring. I just thought it was quite interesting to think about Because I've always thought about working memory as, oh, yeah, this is what working memory is. And everyone's like, oh, yeah, that's interesting. But actually, how does it actually work? How do we do it?
00:12:35
Speaker
And what are the little, what do you know, that ah that kind of opened up to me a whole new kind of vista of, and we don't need to go into all the sort different models of working memory. But, you know, the fact that there's, that the brain is doing so much just to get one thing into the databank.
00:12:51
Speaker
um Absolutely. And I think the research field, you know, I did research now 10, 15 years ago. we all know the kind of working memory models were made to learn that were developed in the 1970s by the central executive and all these types of things. But actually, the field is is advancing really rapidly, I think, in this. And like you say, it must be to do with the brain being able to put like multiple things in in context. And that's what they've seen to do that the hippocampus is particularly important for. And then bind those things all together using different brain areas. So like you say, our brain is doing like an amazing an amazing thing, isn't it? And it's actually quite hard to work out how do we link all these different things together and create like like you say, like a schematic or a kind of context for it.
00:13:39
Speaker
But if we go back to the the more basic thing, not get distracted, you know, your attention, the fact that you have problems with attention makes it more difficult for you to focus on something long enough to encode it.
00:13:50
Speaker
i got two, I suppose I've got two questions from that. Do we know that treating your ADHD, does that improve improve your working memory? Oh, that's such a good question. I actually do not know that. The people in that study we were just talking about were not on any treatment. And that was one of the stipulations that they have to be off to be well um any type of medication. So, yes, I actually don't know. That would be a really interesting thing to find out. So that's interesting. And and the second thing is, happening what about people who have...
00:14:22
Speaker
Really, you know you say most people with ADHD will have, or normally you will have, ah some working memory difficulties with ADHD. What do you make of people who have ADHD but don't have working memory problems?
00:14:36
Speaker
Obviously, everyone has different cognitive strengths and weaknesses. And that's the whole point of jobs like mine, you know, where you do doing psychological testing of people. And I think that, you know, really important to take into account. Obviously, in ADHD, we're definitely expecting some type of inattention and all hyperactivity or impulsivity, because that's kind of one of the tenets of the diagnosis. But absolutely, you can have strengths potentially in working memory, um But, you know, often we do see people with ADHD can have weaknesses, but that's absolutely not going to be the entire group of people with ADHD at all.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, know obviously there's a huge spread of IQ and people might have compensatory um you know strategies, even at that kind of almost almost subconsciously so compensatory strategy. So so i suppose yes it's not it's not it's not ah it's not a universal. i but And I suppose the next question is, what do we do about it? What can we as people with ADHD do about it?
00:15:35
Speaker
And what can we as clinicians help? How can we help? Exactly. And I think, you know, I was saying, rather starting recording, like a lot of my desires, I've, you know, I've now been seeing for almost a decade and I've done a lot of research previous for that.
00:15:52
Speaker
I really feel passionately that we need to try and translate research and what we're seeing into the clinic into practical, helpful day-to-day strategies for people to live a better life.
00:16:03
Speaker
I've definitely felt a bit frustrated sometimes by the physician in the NHS, often where we're very much clinicians are working very much in assessment based services.
00:16:15
Speaker
um And then it's very hard for us to do treatment or kind of develop therapeutic work with people. And actually that's why they come to us, right? People don't come saying, I just want an assessment. They say, I want an assessment and then I want help, like moving on with my life. Absolutely. I'll live all of the left best life I can.
00:16:32
Speaker
And so that's what I've really started to focus more on is actually, OK, well, we know all of this stuff and people are doing so much research all the time. um But how do we actually make this practical and helpful in people's day to day lives? So that's what I'm becoming much more interested in. So there are a lot of strategies that people talk about, but and they're all quite obvious when we talk about them. But let me go through them and you can tell me these are the most obvious things you've ever heard. um so
00:17:04
Speaker
Well, I can't think of much, so it can't be that obvious. So, I mean, if we think about it, if the issue is almost like attention is the gatekeeper sometimes for you, and also let's think about it, fatigue or if you're tired, you know, other things as well are going to make it harder too.
00:17:21
Speaker
So if that's the case, you know, a really obvious thing to do is to try and externalise or, you know, record or do whatever you need to do before your attention kind of shuts down. So by that, I mean, use voice notes, type a note, take a photo, whatever information you need to remember in the future. Actually, whilst it's happening, take a picture, use your phone and actually capture it yourself. Do you see what I mean? So that you have a record of it as well. If you think it's a high likelihood that you haven't taken that information properly in, in the first place, then try and get it out, get it onto your phone, write it down, do something so you've caught it yourself.
00:18:03
Speaker
So, for example, um often patients talk about, to me, about finding it very hard to keep on top of, like, note-taking and things like that. um And so in meetings or you know in school. And so you know we can try and like get good at very quick note taking. Some people are using you know AI on their laptops now a lot as well. um And obviously I can talk a bit about Recallify that also kind of helps you capture conversations like that.
00:18:32
Speaker
So this is so obvious, but now that we're getting so much more functionality on our phones, particularly everyone has their phone everywhere they go. So whatever you're comfortable using,
00:18:42
Speaker
I would suggest if you think this is important, quickly say a voice note to yourself or recall that important conversation or take a picture. Just get it in there somehow so you can impact it in the future.
00:18:54
Speaker
So that's the first kind of obvious, like just capture the moment, basically. And then the other obvious, I think, and important thing that's often talked about in people with inattention and difficulties with distraction is to try and reduce competition for your attention, which is really hard. We're in a age where there's too much competition for our attention. We're like,
00:19:17
Speaker
you know, desperate to look Instagram, desperate, you know, I've raised my own, all that. Before we start recording that, I haven't been on Instagram for four years. And there's a good reason for that. It's too distracting. It's a rabbit hole. And it's immediately reinforcing. And often the things that we don't want to focus on are the things that harder, that we have to do, that are maybe a bit boring, you know, like work or homework or your that test you've got to do or something like that.
00:19:41
Speaker
But it's really important to try and reduce all the distraction that you can and, you know, really try and them make life as distraction free as possible. If it's someone who's speaking to you that you feel like you might zone out ah of, try and look them in the eye. do you see what I mean? Really try and make an effort to listen to that conversation. Often people ask me, but like, I can't concentrate long enough to do, um you know, try and make your room as clutter-free as possible, your house as clutter-free as possible. Don't have your phone with Do you just see what mean? There's something that you really have to take in, try and reduce all the the fun stuff that you might distract yourself with potentially and allow your brain to have that space to to take in the information that you need to remember in the future.
Technology and ADHD Education: Challenges and Ethics
00:20:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:30
Speaker
So I just want to come back a little bit about that because I think what's really interesting is that on the one hand, distraction freedom from distraction is really helpful. But on the other hand, lots of people with ADHD, including myself, when I'm doing something that requires...
00:20:47
Speaker
a certain amount of attention, but doesn't necessarily keep me fully engaged, like a meeting or some you know doing doing some admin at work, I find it very difficult to do if I haven't got something on in the background.
00:21:04
Speaker
So how do we kind of square that with not wanting to be distracted? I know probably that's not, necessary I'm not saying that it's not a contradiction, but how that there does seem to be something that we need to steer between in a way.
00:21:16
Speaker
Absolutely. I think everyone knows that you've got to try out different strategies. And like you say, a lot of people really benefit from white noise, music in the background, other things like that to help them, you know, to help their focus. And they kind of learn over time, but that's something that's really helpful to them.
00:21:36
Speaker
It's it just about that's absolutely fine. And if that supports your focus, that's brilliant. I wouldn't suggest not using that. But that's as a kind of add-on. I guess what I'm more talking about when we say try and reduce distraction is much more the the phones and things like that. And I've literally worked with people where we ended up having them lock their phone in a box because they're just using it so much. But I'm talking about kind of young adults in particular where a lot of these apps are really designed for them and they're very you know exciting they can go on them all the time.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yes, of course. I mean, there's a lot of engineering that goes into keeping capturing your attention. I'm very wary of the idea of addiction as such, but um but there's certainly a sort of compulsive element to and and a kind of endlessness to a lot of these um ways of accessing social media particularly, but but not just social media, it's a video, YouTube, if you can call YouTube social media, I don't know. but um you know YouTube is another example of an and potentially endless. But then again, so is Netflix potentially endless as well. Absolutely. Interesting things are, aren't they? And they all have their face. And they're all great for relaxing, having fun, enjoying yourself.
00:22:55
Speaker
But if it's time to revise your A-levels, or you've got that bit of coursework in, or you know something in life yeah it really is and but really important right now, it's about working out ways to make those things not a priority.
00:23:09
Speaker
And I think thinking about mentioning A-levels does make me think because one of the, i mean, I think for if you're working with an adult, you can say, get your phone out and take a take a voice note when something's important. When you're working with an adult, and you know where I'm going with this, when you're working with an adult, you can, you know, you they have so much more control over their environment. But what about children who are at school, who aren't allowed, know, have to give their phone in at the front desk at the beginning of the day or or just just don't have don't have access to that effectively, to that technology.
00:23:47
Speaker
I think it's such an interesting area and something I guess I've been thinking about a lot, especially with the you know headlines and and what I see in clinic is young people with special educational needs are particularly often not served right now by schools and schools are really struggling he's put in the right support for young people just because there's so many needs and there's not a lot of money and there's not a lot and staff support or training.
00:24:13
Speaker
So it's a tricky one because we absolutely don't want young people to be reliant on their phones. We need them to be learning information. But at the same time, if there's useful technology for them to use to help them compensate for differences in their learning or cognitive abilities or attention, then I think it is important that we start to enable them to use them. But the regulation and development of stuff for schools, for technology,
00:24:40
Speaker
for schools is quite significant. And I think particularly AI is a massive field and I think we're only just starting to think about like how could this even be useful for young people, but it's going to need a lot of kind of regulation and ethical thinking through, particularly around safeguarding for young people in the classroom, use of AI, and then also if other young people get recorded in any way, which is a bit of a mind field actually.
00:25:06
Speaker
It is very tricky. I think that's that's absolutely right. And um yeah, you can just imagine the the ethical minefields of recording a classroom so recording a classroom session, including all of the other children talking.
00:25:18
Speaker
um and how tricky that might be. Although, you know, the same is true of any conversation. There's just multiple different people and potentially you'd need to consent them all in order to record onto your ai Anyway, I'm sure you talk about that with Reconify as well. And and I suppose i suppose to to answer my own point is you know, that technology is in the classroom in the form of, every you know, almost all children have a laptop.
00:25:44
Speaker
So a lot of the stuff that you're mentioning doesn't need to be on a phone phone. It can be on a laptop in a much more controlled environment because the laptop can be owned by the school and, you know, kind of much more easily controlled. So so i think I think it doesn't really particularly, it's not a particularly difficult objection to get around. But yeah, the whole thing about AI in schools, I think that's, ah it's one of those things where I absolutely,
00:26:07
Speaker
do not have a view because I do not know enough and I'm not going to be tempted into having a view or content of comment on it at all. i think that's a really good example. don't know enough about teaching. I don't know enough about AI. I don't know, you know, that's fine. i have a view about that at all. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, something we thought about trying to create Recall of Life, you know, translate it into a kind of educational setting. But like you say, we would need a lot of additional support support ethical reviews, regulatory reviews, safeguarding reviews to be able to even approach that. So it's a kind of very big undertaking to take.
00:26:42
Speaker
But I also think, like you say, there are things that would, and it you know, people could use. see A lot of people do use speech to text and software. Some young people use that.
00:26:53
Speaker
And so that could could start to do some of the things that I'm talking about. It just wouldn't then present it to you in a nice way or help you have a nice summary or notes or just here to me in any of the kind of AI things that can happen. But it could give you back the information that's happening in the classroom.
00:27:09
Speaker
And I think the thing that often teenagers talk about particularly is really not wanting to look different in the classroom so not wanting to have one-to-one support it's a powerful need isn't it not looking different exactly and so you know very few people now do get one-to-one support in the classroom let's be honest especially in secondary schools oh yeah but absolutely but if they do people actually don't really want it because it makes them kind of stick out yeah definitely seen that
The Future of AI in ADHD Education
00:27:36
Speaker
So it's also about trying to think, like, how could we then enable these people who are saying, I don't want, you know, human support, I don't want to be seen as different, but they do need to learn to use some tools to help them. Absolutely. pop the classroom Particularly if they have severe ADHD or other kinds of work memory or memory problems.
00:27:53
Speaker
So it's a really tricky one. and We're a bit of a, I don't know, i feel like we're in a slightly kind of point in in this where it's going to really interesting the next yeah the next and the next couple of years in terms of ai in the classroom and in education are going to be yeah crazy really crazy feel like that's a whole other podcast Yeah, none one that I will not be presenting. You don't want to be involved, fair enough. Well, I do. i mean, i would in ah I'm ADHD guy.
00:28:20
Speaker
i I will probably have somebody on about education and and ADHD and you know what i mean. But but um yeah the broader issues are probably beyond the
Introducing Recallify: Features and Uses
00:28:30
Speaker
scope of this. So I think we've sort of teased around it for long enough. We've mentioned it a few times. Tell me about Requalify. Requalify, is that who's it? Requalify, exactly. Requalify.
00:28:41
Speaker
Tell me about that. Requalify is an app that I developed with my husband, who is an AI specialist. Oh, wow. Okay.
00:28:52
Speaker
And um basically it came out of, you know, me seeing, like I've talked about, this gap in, you know, we've we've got these compensatory strategies that research has shown us work, we can see they do work in the clinic.
00:29:07
Speaker
However, this isn't helping people kind of capture, if I say, you know, write that down in a notebook, use a diary, use Reminder app on your phone, people were, when I've worked with people, were really struggling to manage all these different things that they were trying to kind of juggle to help them manage attention and kind of working memory problems.
00:29:27
Speaker
So, and also, let's be honest, nothing, unless you record it on your phone, can help you gain back access to memories once you've forgotten them. you see what I mean? So unless you're amazing at scribbling down notes as fast as you possibly can, i was really seeing that, you know, people were saying, oh, I wish I could go back in time and read you know re-listen to that conversation. And I thought, well, surely on your phone,
00:29:52
Speaker
we could record it and then you actually would have the ability to almost travel back in time. so And we'll have it as text. Yeah, exactly. So we've been working on Recallify for about two years now. so it's actually gone through quite a journey. um And it's quite old in comparison to other technologies using AI. So I guess, shall I just kind of um describe how it works a little bit? It's using a lot of the things, usually it's using all those compensatory strategies and we try to stick it in
00:30:23
Speaker
a kind of an app to have like evidence-based strategies for people. I was also getting quite annoyed, I don't know if this is me being a bit precious, but there are lots of apps, if you look on the apps and play stores, that say they are, you know, ah blu task management, listy things, and and brain training, and blah blaar and and none of these have a huge amount of evidence behind them. you see it to me? No, none.
00:30:48
Speaker
come from a research and I've worked now in the clinic for 10 years, i was like, surely we could put the things that we know have some evidence behind them into an app and actually enable people with cognitive difficulties to, you know, self-manage and live have better participation in their day to day lives.
00:31:07
Speaker
I'm not really interested here in like improving memory. We all did a huge amount of memory training in the past. I actually did a memory training study for my PhD. We really thought that that doesn't particularly help people. What I'm really talking about is trying to have kind of compensatory strategies day to day to help them. So anyway, let me stop waffling and I'll talk actually about what Recallify does. No, no, it's not waffle at all.
00:31:31
Speaker
but It's me on my soapbox all annoyed at these non-evidence-based things on and Facebook. It's absolutely vital. And that's it's sort of the reason why we have brought you onto the podcast and not all of those people. Brilliant.
00:31:46
Speaker
and Basically. so it's It's really simple, the functionality of Recallify. But um if any of your listeners would like to try out, they're really welcome to get in touch with us and we can give them and a month free trial. So it's really lot of people to try out and give us feedback. We're still really at that kind of user feedback stage. So Recallify allows you to record conversations, voice notes, and also upload audio, video, documents, and PDF.
00:32:16
Speaker
So basically what it's wanting you to do is record or upload information in that you need to remember in the future. So it's saved into Recallify.
00:32:28
Speaker
So for example, a lot of our users use it as a kind of voice note app. So something happens and they're thinking, right, I need to do this thing and they quickly make a recording into Recallify.
00:32:39
Speaker
um Or people use it in a different way as well. They record quite long things like appointments, with doctors where they don't understand the half the words that are used. It's fantastic. Or they use it for, um you know, like people talk about using it for, you know, and school meetings where they're worried that they might forget what teachers say and things like that. So important conversations, I guess.
00:33:04
Speaker
And rec Recallify, all it does then is it's... um It's got a really good transcription quality. We've tried to make it so that eu people with speech difficulties or disorders can also use Recallify because obviously some people with neurological conditions are using Recallify. Yeah, of course.
00:33:22
Speaker
So got great transcription quality. So it transcribes all of what you've recorded or uploaded and then it creates a quick summary for you so you can like recap and look back at what was said or, you know, is in a document. And then is that will get saved into your timeline.
00:33:41
Speaker
And then basically, so that's kind of getting the information in bit. um And then you can do a number of different things with that. So like said, it creates that summary to you so you can kind of quickly go back and refresh your memory. You can listen again for the recording or if you want to.
00:33:58
Speaker
But it also, because it's AI, it's quite smart. So it pulls out tasks that are mentioned in yeah whatever you put in. And it asks you to, like, it puts them all into a task tab for you and that you can set different priority levels. And so that helps you kind of go back and think, OK, for that, you know, school trip my child is going on, I need to do these four things and you can pick them off. you see what mean? It's in your task list. I know that sounds silly, but a lot of our users talk about using it for managing their children's school. Yeah, the the chaos of of a family a family life. It's quite a lot, and you're often getting quite a lot of different things from schools, aren't they? And people put it all in, and then it tells you, right, that's the the thing we're trying to do with this. It's taking complicated information and trying to make it simple. Like, here are the four things, here are the four tasks you need to do. They're all in your task task.
00:34:51
Speaker
And it also pulls out intelligently and automatically reminders for you. So you don't set reminders. if they If the AI notices in your upload or recording that something's talked about in the future that you need to do, it just says automatically, shall I set that reminder for you? And then it goes straight into your personal calendar. That's kind of amazing.
00:35:12
Speaker
I mean, AI is amazing. um And I guess I just wanted to harness it in this situation for good and to really have to make it as helpful as possible for people to help them kind have manage their day-to-day lives.
00:35:23
Speaker
So people really like the tasks. they People love the recordings, look back at the summaries a lot and talk about using them a lot. um And reminders are very helpful as well. And the fact that you actually don't have to set it, you know, you just do a quick voice note saying dentist next Tuesday, 11am, and then the Qualify does all the rest for you is really nice. don't have to click loads of different buttons.
00:35:45
Speaker
um And then kind of the final bit is, you know, you can um go back and, you know, if you say you know that you recorded or you uploaded, say something that you needed to learn or remember particularly, you can obviously look back at all those summaries. You can ask questions. There's an ask button and you can just say like, what was I told about the dentist, and then it kind of searches through and all tends to, like, when you last reported something about that.
00:36:14
Speaker
And I, you know, me being a neuropsychology geek woman, and we've also put in an ability to do quizzes about your memories if you need to learn them.
00:36:25
Speaker
So they're recognition memory quizzes. So um it works much better for longer things. Do you see what mean? Like a lecture that you've listened to or a PDF.
00:36:37
Speaker
um And then you can say create quiz and it'll give you a multiple choice quiz to help you try and strengthen those memories. and Oh, that's so interesting. Oh, gosh. That'd be a bit embarrassing if I'm going to a lecture.
00:36:49
Speaker
Because I do find it's just very, very difficult to concentrate on. I have to say, i I mean, partly because I think a lot of people who lecture in the medical field are not very good at lecturing. i think, do you see what I mean? It's assumed if you know something about you know how to talk about it, which is totally two totally different skills.
00:37:09
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah. Anyway. a way of trying to see, like, you know, how do you train yourself a little bit on this vessel on this information that you have already heard once, you know? And like, for people, we have some great feedback from ah a user who um is actually, you know, a Dexie head teacher. And after, like, experiencing some cognitive changes, she wasn't able to fully remember all of the teaching regulations, which sounds a very boring document. No, no. it into recallify and she tests herself to try and like strengthen those memories again so i think people you know if you really need to know things off the top of your head it can be really helpful as well students and and people like that use it too for that type of thing um yeah so that's that's the kind of geek side of me like enjoying it and that's the bit that is a bit less compensatory strategy all the other bits recallify recording reminders They're all kind of more like a compensatory strategy, aren't they? Whereas the, you know, the kind of recognition memory quiz is trying to kind of strengthen and those memories.
User Feedback and Future Plans for Recallify
00:38:14
Speaker
ah Such an interesting thing to do after you've been to, you know, done some well ah but professional development. I mean, obviously just relevant to us, i suppose, you know, to actually test yourself a little bit on it because otherwise it just disappears on the way home, isn't it really quite often?
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And it's so useful having it on the app. And, you know, and you can actually say, look, these are things that we've gone through. The summary, I find summaries very helpful. You know, if you have those kind of, here are the five bullet points, the main points of what was said in that whole hour. that is so helpful to kind of reactivate those memory traces almost to kind of make you remember other bits what happened. Can you say, could that meeting have been an email? you Can you ask, can you ask, we qualify? Could that meeting have been an email? Yes. It's just in these five bullet points, exactly. There's often a lot of information meetings that isn't needed, isn't it? And I think that's what we're trying to do here. Often people I'm working with, they have, you know, some people I work with very severe or, you know,
00:39:14
Speaker
maybe that's wrong term to use you you know better than me but some people want to have ah an attention span of 10 minutes and so it's really about trying to give those people like let's use this thing if you've zoned out it doesn't matter the app's still listening do you see what I mean and you can go back to that explanation you haven't lost it and I think that's what I was really passionate about because I saw people with these when you know when attention and memory was a particular difficulty They were really struggling in sometimes in employment and things like that. And I wanted to create something that could kind of support them.
00:39:46
Speaker
It's brilliant. such great so I do have a question. I'm sure some people will be asking, and I know this is an easy question. um What about integration with other things that people might already be using? Oh, like what kind of stuff?
00:40:00
Speaker
Well, Google Tasks or whatever Apple has or anything like that. Yeah, absolutely. There's like Apple reminders, aren't there? mean, they don't, like I said, our reminders go into Google, Google calendars and things like that. And you can send and export all your of information out to yourself. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, so there is a degree of integration.
00:40:22
Speaker
There is some integration, but we are still quite an early stage in app development. So, like I said, we're really open to getting feedback from people. And it was really us trying to also put some of these helpful things, you know, that we have heard people using into one place instead of people having to navigate across multiple different kind of things.
00:40:42
Speaker
So, no, it doesn't, and you know, that is something we we need to kind of look at further, especially if people are already used to using these types of tools. Excellent. That's fantastic. um And as I say, you didn't come on to advertise. You came on to talk about memory and you've done a brilliant job. And thank you so much. um I will have a go at rec Recallify. i will. And then I will let the listeners know this will go out a few weeks after we're recording for various reasons. So, but when I do the, the little, uh,
00:41:12
Speaker
outro bit with Lauren we will uh I'll report back how it all went kind important thing and like and I'm also really you know what we started to think we might do and it'd be really interesting to hear what people think is do a bit of a pilot study and we call it usability you have to do usability and acceptability usability studies absolutely So I was thinking about that's what our next plan was, is to do one in adh adults with ADHD, where we'd let them, they would use Recallify for free and they would basically give us their feedback and then be supported by our research assistant to use it and things
Podcast Wrap-Up and AI's Role in ADHD Management
00:41:47
Speaker
like that. And we'd actually kind of get people to to try it out and and kind of give us a really honest feedback. So we'd also love people to get in touch with Bedlight to be part of that kind of thing.
00:41:58
Speaker
So the website is rec recallify, R-E-C-A-L-L-I-F-Y dot A-I. Yeah. I know because I have it open. i And yeah, you can just email us and and like get get involved. But we're also across different social medias now. yeah We've already talked you about if you want to talk to us.
00:42:20
Speaker
So yeah, it'd be lovely to hear from people what they think. Great. it's a great time. That's a great place to leave it. So sir Sarah Rudderberg, thank you very much for joining the ADHD UK podcast. Thanks very much.
00:42:31
Speaker
Thank you. I think that Sarah's brilliant. And I think that the fact that we're utilising AI for good and also almost having a reasonable adjustment for ourselves is very, is very very helpful.
00:42:45
Speaker
And will be for a lot of Yeah, you're right. it's ah it's a self-reasonable adjustment, which is which is actually really quite helpful. You're not waiting for other people to kind of make adjustments for yourself. You're you're taking it into your own hands. um I think, actually, the fact that she'll give any listener a free trial is quite remarkable, actually. Just contact them.
00:43:05
Speaker
um And, um you know, they theyt they they are the good guys of AI, it's fair to say. And we can talk about who, the you know, whether there are bad guys of AI. and As you know, I'm a little wary of getting too far into the weeds of this. um But yes, ah if it is a, if it can be a force for good, it's through people like Sarah, I think it's fair to say.
00:43:29
Speaker
Absolutely. And I would i would honestly, as ah someone that's tested and the app for myself, would definitely say to get give that free trial a go. Yeah, and and I think it's working. It's an area that's moving so fast that we we really apologise to Sarah for taking so long to getting the for getting the episode out for for lots of reasons. But, um you know, I think it will it will be different in six months' time and ensure it's something that we'll come back to. so so Jamie, do you have any thoughts about ai and its potential for people with ADHD more broadly away from this particular app? What what do you think what are your thoughts on it?
00:44:08
Speaker
I mean, I... mean i um i ah You could do a full episode on my thoughts on AI and how it could help people with ADHD. I appreciate that, like, it can be a controversial topic, like you said a couple of minutes ago or whenever it was we spoke about it, but, no, um it's it's fantastic. I mean, I... I can't say... I actually think that, like...
00:44:38
Speaker
the The use of AI and to help manage ADHD could be kicked be compared to something like, you know, um almost like hearing aids or some other kind of aid that someone might use for another disability. I don't know if that's if that's controversial, but...
00:44:58
Speaker
m Yeah, I don't know what but what your thoughts on that are. It's an artificial means of replacing a function that doesn't work very well in your own body or brain, in a sense. Yeah, I think... That's the way in which what you're saying makes perfect sense.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's right. I think it sort of took me a few seconds to sort of articulate it because wasn't sure... I wasn't sure if that sounded quite controversial, contribution but absolutely. I think AI has so many you know benefits or can have so many benefits for, and well, not just people with ADC, but neurodivergent people.
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's got potential benefits for all sorts of people, know, people with speech, language difficulties, autistic people. um Absolutely. And I think the controversy comes, I think, where it replaces, well, either, obviously there's all of the environmental stuff, but then the controversy comes where it replaces people's jobs and displaces people from employment. Yeah.
00:46:07
Speaker
ah there are lots of other reasons why it's controversial, but, but, but I think that's not what we're talking about here. we're We're talking about, because it's almost making people more productive and, and more able to hold down a job.
00:46:21
Speaker
but Exactly. 100%. And, I mean, Yeah, this is it. I think I i mean, I've been in a lot of and AI forums and I seen something the other day, or it was like a comment or something like that. I need to stop reading comments on forums, but someone said, and sorry.
00:46:40
Speaker
You absolutely do. Yes, but carry on. It's good. It's a good damn source of um data capture. But anyway, someone says AI is leveling the playing field and that's why there's so many haters. Yeah.
00:46:54
Speaker
And I kind of resonated with that. Because I really feel as though, because like, honestly, I'm dyslexic, dyscalculic, ADHD, right? I have had so many challenges over my life. I am, you know, like...
00:47:09
Speaker
I did go to uni, um like i' really struggled at school. And now all in the last like couple of years since I've been using um ai like the amount of, just the sheer amount of stuff that that I get done, and it's just fantastic. i mean, a very good example was when the ADHD taskforce came out, i was like, oh, my God, I i really need, and like, one of the reports. was like, I need to sort of understand that bit better. And then, like, I got, like, AI to sit and tell me in a sort of language that I would understand and simplify it. And, you know, things like that. It's just invaluable.
00:47:48
Speaker
I think that's such a great point. And I suppose the only... counterpoint so just to explain to everyone in case that there's any ambiguity the adhd task force report which came out last year was a government uh government commissioned report into adhd which has been completely ignored by the government anyway ah never mind um i suppose the counterpoint to that what people would say is if ai is free and open to all It does level the playing field, but it is an industry. And I suppose the worry that lots of people will have is that over time, access to AI or access to effective AI will become one the people who can afford to pay for it.
00:48:32
Speaker
And therefore it will be another thing that people on higher incomes have an advantage in. So I think in our current era of AI, which is, I think we'll look back as being the era of... It's the golden era. The golden era of free ai Oh, 100%.
00:48:49
Speaker
um then Then I think i think it you can argue at levels of playing field. and So actually one of the worries that might come up is how do we ensure that people with ADHD have access to good quality ai in the future?
00:49:05
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, and I guess it would be something we'd have to add to the list of things that we are trying to get people with ADHD to get a good quality and versions of. But, yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. It's got the potential to, it has got the potential to, and you know, create a gap. But as it stands, it's it's absolutely fantastic. And, yeah, we absolutely should be cautious.
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah. And one of the things about the Recalify app is that it is very much ADHD centric, ADHD focused, you know? and yeah So one of the things I actually used Recalify for was when we had a meeting, in Max, I set myself a reminder earlier on in the day so the meeting. Because sometimes I can, I honestly, one of the things that I've done previously is, you know, you know, you get the calendar reminder sometimes that you've got a meeting and such. And, A lot of the time I'll have my laptop or my phone on mute and that'll be it. It it will it will go. So um it was actually very, very useful to just to be able to put in a voice recording and say, I've got meeting with Max later.
00:50:18
Speaker
Remind me. And another way I've used it as well is by text. I tried i tried both and of them to remind me of the different things. I can't actually remember off top of my head what the other one was now. Funnily enough, but it was it was very good. You should have put it in a voice note. That's it.
00:50:36
Speaker
Because sometimes if you're typing, I sometimes forget what typing, typing. And I know that might sound bit, um I don't know, almost silly, but sometimes if I've got a voice my mind, beginning with a busy brain, very much hyperactive brain,
00:50:52
Speaker
I could lose track. If something else distracts me in that moment, that's it. Whereas if you're doing a voice recording, you know you're you're speaking into voice recorder rather than waiting type out a long sentence. yeah although Although it's not uncommon for me to get uncommon for me to get halfway through a sentence and then forget what it was I was going to say. But I know what you're saying. it is It is less common than it is when you're trying to type.
00:51:17
Speaker
What just All right, we've talked a lot and I think we probably need to leave it there. But um ah so on to the next one. Thank you very much, Jamie. Thank you, Lauren. And um ah yes, all the best to you all. Please follow us on all the social medias as discussed. um and We were talking earlier. I don't really do social media, but the others probably do. um yeah do Do follow the ADHD UK and all of our exploits on social media and please do support the charity in any way that you can. And that's it. Anything else from anyone else?
00:51:52
Speaker
Nothing at all. Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you very much and goodbye. Bye.