Trichotillomania is a compulsive hair pulling condition, often characterized by eyebrow pulling, eyelash pulling, and/or scalp hair pulling. For Marie-Elena Gerety, the founder of The Pluck App, trichotillomania was also her biggest secret. She dealt with trichotillomania since the age of 8, hiding gaps from eyebrow and eyelash pulling with makeup everyday. But after years of hiding her biggest secret, Marie-Elena received the inspiration to take action. She launched The Pluck App, an AI hair pulling detector for laptops. Designed to detect eyebrow, eyelash, and scalp hair pulling, The Pluck App uses the laptop webcam to interrupt pulling with a pop-up screen and replacement behavior. When Marie-Elena shared her idea and secret publicly, several of her videos went viral, reaching millions on Instagram and Facebook. This video will show you how one woman got 3 powers from her biggest secret: Inspiration, Self-Acceptance and Change. Trichotillomania is a compulsive hair pulling condition, often characterized by eyebrow pulling, eyelash pulling, and/or scalp hair pulling. For Marie-Elena Gerety, the founder of The Pluck App, trichotillomania was also her biggest secret. She dealt with trichotillomania since the age of 8, hiding gaps from eyebrow and eyelash pulling with makeup everyday. But after years of hiding her biggest secret, Marie-Elena received the inspiration to take action. She launched The Pluck App, an AI hair pulling detector for laptops. Designed to detect eyebrow, eyelash, and scalp hair pulling, The Pluck App uses the laptop webcam to interrupt pulling with a pop-up screen and replacement behavior. When Marie-Elena shared her idea and secret publicly, several of her videos went viral, reaching millions on Instagram and Facebook. This video will show you how one woman got 3 powers from her biggest secret: Inspiration, Self-Acceptance and Change. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Dementia is often spoken about in whispers—if at all. But what if the greatest loss isn’t memory, but how we treat people after the diagnosis?In this emotional and eye-opening TEDx talk, Adria Thompson, a speech-language pathologist and dementia care educator, challenges the way we view memory loss, aging, and cognitive decline. Drawing from real-world experiences—including time spent at a groundbreaking dementia village in the Netherlands and a 75-person journey across Spain—she offers a hopeful, human-centered approach to care.Whether it’s Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, lewy body dementia or other forms, this talk reveals the deeper cost of silence and stigma—and what we can do instead.Say the word dementia.Change what comes next.Adria Thompson, MA, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist and lecturer in the Communication Disorders program at Eastern Kentucky University. With 10 years of experience in long-term care communities, she specializes in dementia education and caregiver support. As the founder of Be Light Care Consulting, Adria has created over 500 educational videos that provide practical, evidence-based strategies to improve dementia care. Her social media platforms have grown to over 400,000 followers, offering compassionate and accessible education to help families navigate the challenges of dementia. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx