Amateurs Use AI Tools to Build Apps for Relatives With Dementia, Cancer and Scam Risks

Pratik Desai used AI platforms NotebookLM and Claude to create a tool that synthesized medical information. The AI tool told Desai that his mother Smruti was dealing with complications of a pulmonary embolism. He ran the hypothesis by his cousin, a doctor, and rushed her to the hospital.

The AI tool caught mistakes and misdiagnoses in Smruti Desai's medical records. Smruti had 1,600 pages of medical notes. Desai believes his workflow saved his mother's life three times. Desai, who is 34, stood next to his father Subhash in the family's living room in his childhood home in Roselle Park, New Jersey.

The space holds reminders of Smruti, who lived out her final days in a bed there. Desai checked his phone as messages from work arrived while he remained beside that bed. Hanna Miller crafted a no-code Chrome extension to review online purchases by her father who has dementia.

The extension addressed his tendency to order the same package repeatedly. Danesh Davar is 36 and based in London. Davar's mother suffered several hemorrhages in 2019 and lost some motor function including the ability to type.

He could not find dictation tools that fit her needs for under $500 a year. Davar built the dictation platform Talkativ for about $200 after working on smaller projects on the vibe-coding platform Cursor. Talkativ reached 200 sign-ups in its first three months with zero ad spend.

It processed over 12,000 successful dictations. A February study in Nature Medicine found that health advice from chatbots is often riddled with inaccuracies. Some vibe coders told Business Insider they worried their creations could backfire if expanded without developer input.

Vibe coding can go awry because many without technical acumen struggle to detect errors or maintain code that requires periodic updates. Rick Robinson is vice president and general manager of the AgeTech Collaborative from AARP. Robinson said that when his mom was in the throes of dementia years ago with his sister being the exhausted caregiver he had many ideas for tools but the hurdles were high.

Ricardo Mota is 37 and head of design for a tech company. Mota began building his platform Eterna while navigating his mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis. "She doesn't react that much anymore, but there are moments where she will," Mota said.

Eterna is in beta testing with 150 users and Mota is continuing to improve its features and privacy protections. Matt Sanner is 54 and a data manager in Tampa. Sanner only knew basic Python before vibe coding a scam education app for his parents.

His mother-in-law had almost wired $5,000 to someone she thought was her grandson before a bank teller identified it as a scam. Sanner decided a straightforward app could help his family understand tactics for detecting scams. His mother Sue is 79 years old and his father Bob is 83 years old.

Sue and Bob told Business Insider that the app has made them much more cautious. Bob checks in frequently with his son to confirm that he reacted the right way. "I must have completely erased that from my mind," Bob said.

Srdjan Stakic is 49. Before last year Stakic had never touched code. He has a doctorate in health education and a master's in film production. Stakic was diagnosed two years ago with stage four cancer.

His career came to a halt after the diagnosis. He first used AI to generate summaries of his and their medical care. He wanted a system that could ethically observe them if he wasn't home with them. To train the AI tool he built on Lovable he uploaded training videos for nurses and healthcare workers.

Stakic vibe coded the system to send notifications to loved ones or EMS workers with clipped footage, location and health record summary. "It's amazing to see how vibe coding is democratizing access to AI tools," Stakic said in California. Desai and his father Subhash stood in their living room glancing at a photo of Smruti as he reflected on the medical data workflow he built for his mother's cancer.