Igniting a global dementia prevention movement
Dementia is a neurodegenerative disease that can stop people carrying out basic daily functions. It affects over 10 million people in Europe alone. The World Health Organization expects this figure to double by 2030. “Radical change is needed as one in three people born today are expected to develop dementia in their lifetime. Solutions are therefore needed to reduce numbers impacted in the next elderly generation,” says Melissa May Kapoor, CEO and founder of Mind Over Matter Medtech Ltd. Diagnosing dementia is difficult, however, and often is only recognised once symptoms have advanced. The EU-funded DEMPREV project, run by the British company Mind Over Matter Medtech, is hoping to kick-start a global movement for the prevention of the disease, by identifying biomarkers that reveal a risk of future development. DEMPREV is focusing on brain inflammation. Chronic systemic inflammation can occur because of diabetes, long-term poor diet, chronic stress, lack of sleep and other known lifestyle risks for dementia. The resulting inflammatory mediators travelling in the blood can cause the blood-brain barrier to become more permeable. “This can lead to these inflammatory mediators entering the brain permanently and causing damage to the brain cells. It is a consequence of this damage on the function of the brain that our system aims to detect,” explains Kapoor, DEMPREV project coordinator. The team investigated the feasibility of developing a non-invasive neuroimaging solution that detects unique information about an individual’s risk of developing dementia. And the project wanted to find out if this solution could be manufactured at a price that potential customers would be willing to pay.
Assess, diagnose, improve
The low-cost technology incorporates a headband with a small number of novel neuroimaging sensors. It is believed that these sensors may allow the level of brain inflammation, an established biomarker of future dementia risk, to be inferred in a non-invasive manner in primary care or community settings. The vision is for the headband to be used in conjunction with software that assesses an individual’s clinical dementia risk factors. These include smoking, BMI and diet, among others. Combining dementia risk information detected by the headband with clinical risk factor information has potential to create a step change in the sensitivity and specificity with which an individual’s dementia risk can be estimated.
App for change
Drawing on detailed assessment by the software, individuals could be prescribed methods for changing and improving their lifestyle in ways which could reduce the risk of developing dementia by up to 50 %. The project is also developing a solution to assist with this, namely a behaviour change app. “Our system provides small, personalised daily behaviour change steps targeting the risk factors that help reduce the user’s dementia risk score,” adds Kapoor. The project has been working on the app through the period of COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom, finalising its functionality and adding in new modules that will increase compliance with the behaviour change programmes. The team then plans to pilot the app to collect evidence of clinical effectiveness and business model viability. Additionally, Mind Over Matter Medtech is planning for a future project to complete the dataset needed to prove the neuroimaging headband concept. “We will then be seeking to raise funds to develop a wireless version of the headband and conduct a trial validating the headband using an MRI scanner,” says Kapoor.
Keywords
DEMPREV, dementia, prevention, scanner, inflammation, brain, headband, software
