Reminders and tools to help older adults remember future tasks
Official title: Using Cognitive Offloading to Mitigate Age-Related Declines in Prospective Memory
Funded at University of Texas Arlington · NIH-11376308 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether using external reminders and brief strategy training helps older adults, including people with Alzheimer's-related memory problems, remember to do things like take medications and keep appointments.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Texas Arlington NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Arlington, United States) |
| Project start | September 15, 2022 |
| Project end | August 31, 2026 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $19,137 |
| NIH project number | 3R16GM146705-04S1 |
| Project ID | NIH-11376308 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are adults with age-related memory decline or Alzheimer's-related memory difficulties who have trouble remembering future tasks such as taking medicine or attending appointments.
✕Less likely to help
People with very advanced dementia who cannot follow instructions or learn new strategies may not benefit from the approaches tested.
What this research studies
From your perspective, researchers will ask participants to complete everyday memory tasks that require remembering to do things later while they record behavior and pupil responses to spot when memory breaks down. They will test how offloading information to alarms, notes, or phone reminders helps during the encoding, storage, and retrieval of future intentions. The team will also provide short training on effective offloading strategies and compare how well trained and untrained participants remember. Combining behavior measures with pupillometry is meant to show which reminder methods work best for older adults.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could reduce missed medications and other everyday memory failures by identifying and teaching effective reminder strategies.
How similar studies have gone: Previous research shows external reminders and offloading can help older adults remember better, but combining physiological (pupil) measures with formal strategy training for prospective memory is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Texas Arlington
Arlington, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Ball, Brett Hunter — University of Texas Arlington
- Study coordinator: Ball, Brett Hunter
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.