Announcement made at Alzheimer\u2019s Association International Conference taking place in London this week, where new AI research tools were also publicised<\/p>\n
An Irish-based health technology company is behind the development of a new dementia assessment service.<\/p>\n
Head Diagnostics, which is headquartered at NovaUCD in Dublin, has partnered with healthcare provider Medefer on the innovation which will combine a comprehensive digital cognitive test battery with consultant-led specialist care to support earlier diagnosis.<\/p>\n
The announcement has been timed to coincide with the Alzheimer\u2019s Association International Conference, which runs London from July 12 to 15.<\/p>\n
The project is being designed in two parts \u2013 first is a memory assessment built around the Head Diagnostics HDx Cognition platform, which includes a digital cognitive battery clinically validated against established paper-based assessments, available at the cognition clinics or, with support, at home, with consultant oversight, and advice on whether further assessment is right for the person.<\/p>\n
People will then have the option, through a remote, consultant-led service, to go on to a formal diagnosis of dementia, with blood tests and\u00a0 an MRI brain scan \u2013 and a test for Alzheimer\u2019s disease where relevant. The service covers assessment and diagnosis only.<\/p>\n
\u201cHDx Cognition brings clinically validated digitised cognitive testing into everyday settings, enabling earlier identification of mild cognitive impairment before symptoms become entrenched,\u201d said said Head Diagnostics CEO David van Zuydam.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy detecting subtle cognitive changes at the point of first concern, we help ensure patients reach expert review sooner. We are pleased to work with Medefer to turn that earlier insight into prompt, specialist-led answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first cognition clinics are currently being established in the UK, with Medefer and Head Diagnostics will build on the initial learnings to expand the service.<\/p>\n
The venture has received grant funding from Eisai and has been supported by Enterprise Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cHead Diagnostics is an excellent example of the innovative companies emerging from Ireland\u2019s medtech sector,\u201d said Enterprise Ireland head of lifescience Cepta Duffy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy applying advanced digital technology to support earlier cognitive assessment, the company is helping address a significant healthcare challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis collaboration with Medefer has the potential to improve access to specialist assessment and provide earlier clarity for patients and their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnterprise Ireland is proud to support Head Diagnostics as it continues to scale internationally and bring innovative Irish healthcare solutions to global markets.<\/p>\n
The conference also facilitated the launch of three open-source AI tools to accelerate research aimed at developing new treatments for Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.<\/p>\n
The Consortium for Biomedical Research and Artificial Intelligence in Neurodegeneration (C-BRAIN), a global collaboration of academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and philanthropic organisations, said the tools synthesize Alzheimer\u2019s and neuroscience literature, uncovering insights from unpublished and so called \u2018dark\u2019 or hidden data, and providing peer review-style feedback for researchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeveraging the AI revolution with scientists\u2019 ability to generate enormous amounts of research results has created an incredible opportunity,\u201d said C-BRAIN founder and director Dr Randall J. Bateman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brain is immensely complex, but artificial intelligence inspired by the human brain can find relationships within massive amounts of data that a single human mind simply cannot hold. Our expectation is that discoveries made over the next few years will be breakthroughs that wouldn\u2019t be possible without AI.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Announcement made at Alzheimer\u2019s Association International Conference taking place in London this week, where new AI research tools…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[232596,2012,232597,2926,232598,232599,232600,103,61,60,232601],"class_list":["post-548847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-alzheimer-society-of-ireland-asi","tag-alzheimers-disease","tag-alzheimers-association-international-conference","tag-dementia","tag-dementia-assessment","tag-hdx-cognition","tag-head-diagnostics","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medefer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}