The Innovations Changing Dementia Care
Quick Terms to Know
Dementia: A group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking, and social abilities severely enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): The simulation of human intelligence by machines, especially computer systems. In dementia care, AI is used for monitoring, support, and early diagnosis.
Smart Home: A residence equipped with devices that automate tasks or provide alerts, often using AI to improve safety and quality of life.
Voice Assistant: A hands-free, AI-powered interface (like Alexa or Google Assistant) that responds to verbal commands and can be tailored to help with reminders and routines.
The traditional path to diagnosing dementia is a long one.
Friends and relatives might be the first to notice signs of decline: In its early stages, dementia — the loss of cognitive function — often presents as mild memory loss, mood changes, and difficulty with daily tasks.
The hazy early stages of dementia can make it hard to catch early on, and that means the disease has more time to progress without medical intervention.
Enter a powerful new tool being used in myriad ways to catch the early signs of different types of dementia: AI.
AI for Early Detection
Researchers at Boston University recently announced an AI tool that they say can predict someone’s risk of developing Azleimers with a high accuracy.
How does that model detect whether mild cognitive impairment will progress into Azlheimer’s disease? By using speech data.
The model uses voice recordings from exams, as well as basic demographics, to predict whether a patient will progress from having mild cognitive impairment to dementia. That doesn’t mean it will replace the slew of tests used to diagnose dementia — but it’s an bulwark to catch the signs early and help slow the progression of the disease.
AI for Management
AI’s usefulness in the field of dementia care doesn’t stop with detection. It’s also a crucial tool to help both patients and their caregivers.
That can include AI-powered apps that can function as digital companions for people with dementia. Take Viv, an AI companion designed specifically or people with dementia by UNSW Sidney, or Alzheimer’s Intelligence, a 3D avatar with custom AI to give people round-the-clock conversations whenever they need it.
“Globally there are around 55 million people living with dementia, and that number is expected to reach 139 million by 2050,” Dr. David Llewellyn, professor of clinical epidemiology and Digital Health at the University of Exeter, said in a previous release announcing Alzheimer’s Intelligence.
“The AI advancements in Lenovo’s ‘Alzheimer’s Intelligence’ initiative demonstrate how technology has the potential to enhance human interaction, offering a valuable tool to support individuals living with dementia, both in the present and future.”
AI as a management tool also includes smart home technologies. Those tools have numerous uses for older adults, but also have particular functions aimed at cognitive decline and memory loss. They shut automatically shut off ovens, stovetops, and other household appliances if forgotten about — and have functionality beyond making appliances safer.
Some of those smart home technologies can even help predict dementia onset by using sensors and AI algorithms to detect subtle changes in someone’s daily activities and notify patients and caregivers alike.
