As people suffering from dementia sink into a second childhood, mealtimes can become more challenging than feeding a clumsy, food-flinging toddler.

A young Taiwanese design student, inspired by her grandmother's battle with Alzheimer's, has designed a tableware set to make it easier for cognitively impaired people to feed themselves - and provide caregivers a break during mealtimes.

Sha Yao, Taiwanese industrial designer from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, came up with the creative ideas when her grandma, now deceased, was first diagnosed with the disease. Yao spent years talking and taking care of people with Alzheimer's and noticed that eating was a challenge. 

Over four years, she refined her ideas for her assistive tableware set. She chose blue as the inside color of bowls to contrast with the color of the food. Yao designed plates with a slanted bottom to make it easier to scoop out the last bites of food. The set comes with a tray that has an attachable bib to make cleanup easier and faster.

Her tableware set won the Design Challenge of the Stanford Center on Longevity, and is now commercially available online.

Yao said the tableware allows people to "eat by themselves as much as possible to maintain their dignity, and also to alleviate the caring burden of caregivers."