Workplace Technology (A Special Report) --- Technology Can Help People With Dementia Stay on the Job: As the population ages, more workers are going to face cognitive impairment. Maybe they don't have to stop working as soon as they fear.

“For many people, digital devices are a kind of second brain, ready to help with any number of tasks. That could make them transformative for a group that is expected to grow as the population ages: workers with dementia.

 

James Fletcher, assistant professor of digital futures at the University of Bath, has spent more than a decade researching how people with dementia use technology in everyday life. His work suggests that many could remain in the workforce longer than they currently do, through the use of digital tools along with more-thoughtful workplace technology and corporate policies.

 

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Fletcher about how people with dementia could use technology to lead longer, less stigmatized and more productive work lives. Here are edited excerpts:

 

WSJ: Some people assume that those diagnosed with dementia can't adopt new technologies. Is that assumption true?

 

JAMES FLETCHER: Dementia is strongly associated with older age, and that brings with it the broader stereotype that older people don't use digital technologies. Historically, that was sometimes the case, but that's not so true anymore. Older people are increasingly tech-literate.

 

On top of that, there is the assumption that people with dementia can't use technology. But someone diagnosed in their 60s today may have been blogging in their 30s and was on a smartphone in their 40s and social media and speech-based devices, like an Alexa, in their 50s. These digital tools are part of their daily routine. Even for the cohort I study, which is people with dementia aged 60 to their late 80s, their digital lives don't end at a certain age.

 

WSJ: What examples do you have of people with dementia using technology to make it possible to work longer?

 

FLETCHER: One of the tools that people have spoken to me about working well is automatic scheduling, the kind you see with Teams or Google Calendar. I spoke to someone who opened his work calendar to family and colleagues so anyone could drop in a meeting and it would alert him in advance. That worked quite well. Using biometrics instead of remembering complex passwords is another great tool.

 

WSJ: Where else do you see the biggest opportunities for technology to support people at work?

 

FLETCHER: People with dementia can struggle with finding their way around, perhaps because of memory difficulties, and they are known to wander. But thanks to Google Maps and navigation systems, we can get specific directions to a place in real time. There are a few companies that do bespoke mapping for big universities or corporate campuses or hospitals. These maps have more contrast and more signage to make them more accessible.

 

There are some researchers and developers working with augmented reality, so if you're wearing their glasses with an AR display, they will navigate you to your desired location.

 

WSJ: What if you're assessed with attention issues?

 

FLETCHER: If you have attention deficit, you may find it difficult to maintain focus through a multistep process -- like you're a professor and you're preparing a lecture, but halfway through, you forget what you're doing. Typically, you have to turn on the computer, log in to maybe more than one screen, then open a folder, then click to a document. Each of those stages is one more opportunity for the user to get distracted and for things to fall apart.

 

For people with dementia, it can be really difficult to get back on track. They can instead use a natural-language interface, where you can speak as you normally do to your Alexa device, and it grabs the right folder.

 

Some people later in life can be affected by motor issues, making using keyboards, trackpads and touch screens more difficult. Bypassing that can be a great outcome of using natural-language processors. Dictating notes instead of typing is very good. There is evidence that these natural-language processors struggle with older voices, but they are getting to a point where they are reliable.

 

WSJ: What if comprehension is an issue?

 

FLETCHER: ChatGPT and other chatbots are trained to transform information into another format. As a dementia researcher, I am legally required to translate my documentation into formats that are easy for people with cognitive impairment to read.

 

I can ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude to take my document and rewrite it using only single-clause sentences and single-syllable words without changing the meaning.

 

 

That would have taken me a whole day five years ago; now it's instantaneous and free to everybody. That could apply to emails, memos or policy documents without losing content.

 

WSJ: You work with people with dementia who suffer from aphasia, or difficulty finding words. What tools can help them in the workplace?

 

FLETCHER: People often tell me they know exactly what they want to say, but something breaks down between thought and speech. Text-prediction large language models do exactly the task that people with aphasia struggle with, and they really excel at finding the next word in a sequence.

 

You can now train large language models on personalized data, like your email and document history. Then the text it predicts sounds just like you.

 

Of course, a person with dementia likely couldn't set this up on their own. This should be an organization-level strategy available to people with dementia.

 

WSJ: How do you envision a workplace providing support to employees with dementia?

 

FLETCHER: At the moment, people with dementia are often understandably reluctant to disclose. They know the consequence can be unemployment. If organizations have visible, credible support structures in place, people are more likely to come forward.

 

To provide continued support, workplaces need to have regular check-ins with their employees, but they don't need to be intrusive. In universities, we routinely review disability action plans every term. Most of the time, they work well with minimal adjustment. I could see that process translating to HR settings.

 

WSJ: What can individuals with dementia who want to continue working do themselves?

 

FLETCHER: Over the past 20 years, digital technology has fundamentally changed what it means to be diagnosed with dementia. Social media made it possible for people who were once isolated to find one another, share strategies and build peer-support communities.

 

If I were diagnosed today, after taking time to process it, I would look for those communities. Even finding one other person in a similar situation can be meaningful and allow people to make sense of their diagnosis in ways that weren't possible before.

 

That goes hand in hand with my main advice: You don't want to wait for diagnosis.

 

One in three of us will be diagnosed, so dementia will become really common.

 

 And all of us are going to work longer -- and that means we will statistically be working with diminished cognition. So we should all be thinking about implementing technology to lower our cognitive loads.” [1]

 

1. Workplace Technology (A Special Report) --- Technology Can Help People With Dementia Stay on the Job: As the population ages, more workers are going to face cognitive impairment. Maybe they don't have to stop working as soon as they fear. Mitchell, Heidi.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 20 Feb 2026: R6.