1,600km away from home, a son used AI to create an app to help his father recover after a stroke
(Dan Tri) - On the phone screen, a 70-year-old man in Hai Phong touched the 3D heart model, zooming in on each position to observe the activity of the heart and vascular system.
About 4 months ago, he just experienced a stroke. After a period of treatment and recovery, monitoring health indicators has become a part of daily activities.
Every time he measures his blood pressure, he enters the results into an electronic book on his phone. Indicators are saved by day, aggregated by week and month for convenient monitoring.
The application he uses is called An Tam, created by his son in one morning. The idea of the application started from the family's concerns after the father's health incident.
For nearly 20 years, Mr. Nguyen Anh Ngoc, 42 years old, has lived and worked in Ho Chi Minh City in the fields of communications, marketing and artificial intelligence applications.
Mr. Nguyen Anh Ngoc, 42 years old, currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City in the fields of communications, marketing and artificial intelligence applications (Photo: Provided by the character).
About 1,600km away, his father lives in Hai Phong with his third child. At the age of 70, the retired officer still maintains an active life, regularly participating in local social activities and the Association of the Elderly.
The family's life changed after a phone call about 4 months ago.
While walking on the road, Mr. Ngoc's father suddenly showed signs of a stroke and was taken to the emergency room by relatives. Receiving news from Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Ngoc arranged his work and flew back to Hai Phong to take care of his father.
"I was very shocked when I received the news. My father was always active, often participated in local activities and was quite confident about his health. He never thought that one day he would have to face a stroke," Mr. Ngoc recalled.
According to Mr. Ngoc, during the examination, the family was told by the doctor that the father's condition was related to atherosclerosis in the arteries carrying blood to the brain, causing damage to an area of the brain.
After a week of treatment at the hospital and about 2 months of recovery at home, he was gradually able to walk and communicate. However, the speaking rhythm is slower than before. Changes in the body after a stroke also make the 70-year-old man constantly worry about his health.
Leaving the hospital is just the first step in the process of adapting to a new life. According to Mr. Ngoc, the doctor recommended that his father adjust his diet to control risk factors.
However, changing the diet is not easy for the father, who has maintained a salty eating habit for many years. Meanwhile, out of concern for her husband's health, the mother hopes he will quickly comply with the new diet.
Differences in perspective make family activities stressful at times.
"It is very difficult for the patient to change their habits suddenly, but the caregiver is so worried that they want the other person to change immediately," the 42-year-old son thoughtfully explained about the psychological pressure that parents have to go through.
When his health gradually stabilized, Mr. Ngoc's parents decided to go from Hai Phong to Ho Chi Minh City to visit their children.
Mr. Ngoc's family took a photo with his parents during the summer of 2026 (Photo: Provided by the character).
Changing the environment, not eating properly, and feeling insecure about his illness caused his blood pressure to rise at times, forcing his family to take him to the emergency room.
After being treated by the doctor, the next day, the blood pressure dropped to a very low level. Through discussion, the family is informed about nutrition and psychological state during the process of controlling health after a stroke.
Seeing his father tired, Mr. Ngoc struggled to find a solution to help him better understand his condition, maintain health monitoring, and gradually adapt to changes in daily life.
On the holiday of September 2, Mr. Ngoc sat in front of the computer and began to realize the idea of a digital tool specifically for parents.
The product is shaped as a minimalist website, optimized for operation on smartphones to ensure easy accessibility for the elderly.
"The name An Tam was born from the desire to bring peace to both sides. The son working away from home feels secure when receiving updated data from his father every day. On the contrary, the 70-year-old father also relieved his confusion, clearly understood his own condition and persistently complied with the treatment regimen," Mr. Ngoc confided with a smile.
Mr. Ngoc applied Vibe coding method and AI tools to realize the An Tam idea (Photo: Provided by the character).
Without professional training in programming, the 42-year-old creator chose artificial intelligence as a support tool.
The software development process applies the Vibe coding method, starting from emotions and understanding the actual needs of users to convey into the algorithm.
In one morning, the Perplexity tool was exploited to survey the market, review the current medical system and eliminate complex utilities.
Soon after, the entire lean requirements framework was transferred to the Claude Code platform to automatically generate source code.
The first technical version was quickly put into test operation, going through many rounds of direct adjustment of functions, display text as well as simulated images.
By early afternoon of the same day, the finished product was ready to be sent to the patient.
The core philosophy in the process of building the platform lies in radical streamlining to suit the habits of older people. The system eliminates bulky modules, retaining only the most practical utilities such as recording daily blood pressure readings and automatically calculating weekly and monthly averages.
The An Tam application interface is designed to be minimalist, aiming to help the 70-year-old father easily use and monitor his daily health (Photo: Provided by Character).
In particular, the interface integrates a vivid three-dimensional heart model with an intuitive blood vessel system. When touching the screen, users can observe the mechanism of atherosclerotic plaque formation, the appearance of blood clots and their impact on the brain.
"The interactive model helps my father visualize more easily than two-dimensional images. He can directly manipulate and observe the heart's activity in different states and understand more about what's going on inside the body," the male artificial intelligence engineer explained.
An Tam integrates 3D models of the heart, blood vessels and brain, helping users interact directly to visualize changes taking place inside the body (Photo: Provided by Character).
In addition, the program also provides brief lessons on nutrition and body mechanics. In order to solve the problem of loss of appetite due to strict abstinence, this technical solution also suggests flexible sample trays based on ingredients available in the family refrigerator.
Receiving the software link from his son via social network with detailed video instructions, the father in Hai Phong could not hide his surprise. For the first time, he observed the pattern of the heart beating according to the rhythm of movement and understood clearly the cause of his accident.
"This understanding helped him relieve his anxiety. Feeling the hearts of his children, he was very touched and sent his thanks," he said.
The software author admits he has no medical expertise. Therefore, the scope of operation of the website is actively limited to providing general knowledge and recording data, and absolutely does not create content to provide treatment indications.
During the process of collecting information, the artificial intelligence system is required to collate many reliable sources, focusing on fundamental knowledge such as the activity of the heart, the vascular system, the brain or the mechanism of stroke formation. All content created by the tool goes through direct review before being integrated into the product.
"An Tam provides background knowledge and supports users in recording data. Issues related to diagnosis and treatment still rely entirely on specialists," Mr. Ngoc emphasized.
After a period of operation, the website has become a familiar companion in the father's daily activities.
To ensure absolute security of personal information, all data is stored directly on the mobile device. Every week, users only need to perform a simple operation to send a summary of blood pressure monitoring via the text message application to their son and the specialist.
From his father's practical experience, Mr. Ngoc continues to adjust the tool to make it more convenient for him to use.
"In the near future, I plan to integrate an AI voice assistant. My father can read the blood pressure measurement results for the system to record instead of having to enter each number manually," Mr. Ngoc excitedly shared about the plan to upgrade the application.
Besides, he also plans to add a voice interaction feature, helping fathers access some common health knowledge in a simpler way.
Living and working far from home, Mr. Ngoc hopes An Tam will help him feel more secure when he can monitor his father's health information every day (Photo: Provided by the character).
Ting…
The notification bell from the mobile device rang, interrupting the creator's train of thought. Mr. Ngoc opened the messaging app and received a file summarizing the week's health indicators sent by his father.
Glancing over each number showing that the physical monitoring is still maintained regularly every day, he smiled with relief.
The engineer put the phone down on the table, took a sip of coffee and then continued to return to the unfinished work on the computer screen.