ADVANCED MEDICAL ELECTRONICS CORP — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase II: NIA

Description

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant This project develops a novel social support aid SSA to allow persons with dementia PWDs to more fully engage in their social network and enhance their quality of life The SSA will assist people in an early stage of dementia e g Alzheimerandapos s disease or related dementia who desire social interaction but struggle to remember names and relationships It provides memory cuing by displaying and or announcing the names and relationships of the people with whom PWDs are engaged We anticipate that the SSA will offer robust support for care partners and PWDs in various communities The SSA is not intended to replace caregiver aids but rather augment them to further improve quality of life Millions of Americans have dementia the loss of mental functions e g thinking memory and reasoning which interferes with their daily functioning While some cases of dementia are caused by medical conditions that can be treated most cannot be reversed Hence the focus switches from treatment to palliative care i e developing a plan to make life easier and more comfortable for individuals with dementia and their caregivers Assistive technologies to enhance living with dementia let alone studies that evaluate their efficacy are underdeveloped The proposed project aims to begin filling this scientific and clinical gap by developing a social support aid and formally evaluating its utility via a sufficiently powered randomized controlled trial PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Millions of Americans have dementia the loss of mental functions e g thinking memory and reasoning which interferes with their daily functioning While some cases of dementia are caused by medical conditions that can be treated most cannot be reversed Hence the focus switches from treatment to palliative care i e developing a plan to make life easier and more comfortable for individuals with dementia and their caregivers The proposed project will develop an important tool to improve the quality of life for persons with dementia