MIDS Capstone Project Spring 2021

Cognition Tracker

6.2 million patients suffer from Dementia in the US1. 83% of these seniors receive combined a estimated 15.3 billion hours of unpaid care every year, typically from their spouse or other family members2. These caregivers routinely express that lack of knowledge about how fast the condition is progressing is a major cause of burden and stress. It results in unrealistic expectations of the capabilities of their loved ones and insufficient planning for their future needs.3 

Currently, however, tracking the progression of dementia is prohibitively expensive for most patients, and generally requires specialist care and invasive tests. Given that only 1 in 3 dementia patients see a specialist at all in the first 5 years after their diagnosis4, it's clear that the barrier is extremely high today.

Cognitive Tracker has the power to do for dementia what home blood-pressure-monitors have done for vascular diseases. We have created a product that allows caregivers and general practitioners the ability to easily, reliably and inexpensively track the cognitive ability of their patient. We utilize a novel technique, employing an ensemble of audio- and text-based deep learning models to measure cognition through spontaneous speech.

By implementing this non-invasive, automated approach in an easy-to-use cross-platform application, and pairing this with features like longitudinal tracking, we are helping caregivers of dementia patients with their difficult but profoundly important responsibilities.

For more information, please visit https://cognitiontracker.com


1,2 Statistics from the 2021 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures Report, Alzheimer's Association: https://www.alz.org/media/Documents/alzheimers-facts-and-figures.pdf

3 Sörensen S, Conwell Y. Issues in dementia caregiving: effects on mental and physical health, intervention strategies, and research needs. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2011;19(6):491-496. doi:10.1097/JGP.0b013e31821c0e6e

4 Drabo EF, Barthold D, Joyce G, Ferido P, Chang Chui H, Zissimopoulos J. Longitudinal analysis of dementia diagnosis and specialty care among racially diverse Medicare beneficiaries. Alzheimers Dement. 2019;15(11):1402-1411. doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2019.07.005


Last updated: April 7, 2021