Innovative solutions at Alzheimer’s Disease International
We know that cutting-edge technology is transforming industry, healthcare and society but too little of it is being applied to tackle the challenges faced by people affected by dementia.
I’m pleased to be at Alzheimer’s Disease International 2024 in Krakow, Poland, where this morning I chaired a session on the Longitude Prize and how technology can support people living with dementia.
Importance of innovation and the Longitude Prize on Dementia
The Longitude Prize on Dementia is an ambitious project designed to incentivize the development of technology to help people retain their independence and maintain wellbeing and quality of life.
The step change here is that instead of using technology only to monitor and keep people safe, the Prize focuses on creating AI-enabled tools that will be used by people living with dementia to continue living fulfilling lives.
The journey of people living with dementia is often characterised by a series of losses – in abilities, independence, choice and autonomy.
Recent years have seen a rise in personalised technologies that can adapt to individual and changing needs, from smart speakers to fitness trackers, driven by advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and other breakthroughs in science and technology.
Unfortunately, many of these exciting products are not user-friendly or accessible for those with cognitive challenges, especially as their condition progresses and their cognitive abilities change.
At the same time, current assistive technologies for people living with dementia are yet to integrate these advances into something that can meet the changing needs of users.
The aim of the Longitude Prize was to provide a programme with a strong enough pull factor to bring new people with brilliant ideas into this space.
Excitement for the prize
The challenges of living with dementia are huge.
At Alzheimer’s Society our ambition to solve those challenges is just as big and that’s why we are funding this project.
The solutions being developed across the prize are hugely varied, from tech which helps people to find their way, to virtual and augmented reality products through to monitoring systems designed to promote independence by pre-empting common risks associated with living with dementia. There are hearing interventions, smart glasses, voice companions, avatars and new ways of lighting people’s homes.
The sheer breadth of potential solutions is so exciting. Any number of these could go on to fundamentally change the experience of living with dementia.
Importance of co-creation and the LEAP to the prize
How do we ensure that these technologies and services will truly be transformative?
For that, we must thank those people with lived experience of dementia who have been at the heart of the Longitude Prize at every step.
From the initial design of the challenge to testing, consulting on and judging each of the solutions being developed, people with lived experience are involved at every stage.
Alzheimer’s Society built and facilitated the Lived Experience Advisory Panel or LEAP, a 12-person strong, international panel of people affected by dementia.
The LEAP is a mix of people living with dementia, including four different diagnoses, and people with significant experience caring for someone living with dementia.
The LEAP has been instrumental in helping to provide lived experience feedback on initial applications and in helping select the 24 semi-finalists that we have today.
They are in the process of meeting each team across the prize and will be assessing each of these applications to help pick the five finalists and the eventual winner of the £1million prize later next year.
The status quo for people living with dementia is unacceptable. We must respond by being brave, bold and disrupting things as they stand.
There will only be one formal winner of the Longitude Prize on Dementia but the prize is about more than that. It’s about the hope it inspires in people affected by dementia and about all the teams formed and their innovative solutions. It’s about transforming lives through incredible projects which wouldn’t have existed without this kind of prize.
@challengeworks @innovateuk #innovation #dementia #dementiaresearch #ADI2024
Tomorrow at Alzheimer’s Disease International I’ll be chairing a plenary exploring global approaches to research investment when I’ll be joined by representatives from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, Fundación CIEN and Alzheimer’s Association.
