Digital photo frame for Margie

Margie's kids got her a digital photo frame with a picture that changes every 30 seconds. They can send photos to it from their phones or from email, and it is already helping her with memory. "Oh, that's the Dolomites!"

"That was the walk we took on Mt. Rainier."

I think it's a great boon for people who are aging and losing short-term memory. It's expensive. This is the 10-inch version, and I see that she strains to see the details, so a (doubly expensive) 15-inch frame would be better for her. It has lifted her out of her confinement, and it takes her places with her most beloved people. She sees places she has been before and places she has never seen. They all become familiar to her as the photos flash past, again and again.

"I have to turn it off in the afternoon," she explains to me, "because it can be distracting. It can make me forget where I was going when I stood up. But I have that anyway most of the time. This business of dying in old age is very slow. I get impatient. But the picture frame is a kind of miracle for me, while I'm waiting. My children are wonderful."