The National Institutes of Health has awarded CareBand Inc. Phase I Small Business Innovation Research funding to determine whether the CareBand system can detect agitation in people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Agitated individuals are more likely to be prescribed high-risk psychotropic medications and are at greater risk for injury to themselves and others, which can lead to removal from home or care facilities. Measuring and ultimately predicting agitation can de-escalate stressful situations and is anticipated to decrease costs and caregiver burden, CareBand reports.
In Phase I of the NIH-supported study, CareBand Inc. which has developed a LoRa-based wearable that provides an individual’s near real-time indoor and outdoor precise location, movement and activity data, will deploy the technology to residents living in Bethany Village, an Indianapolis skilled nursing facility managed by American Senior Communities. Over a six-week period, facility staff will record observation-based, validated agitation scale data daily. The relationship between the motion data and the agitation scale data will then be evaluated and analyzed to expand existing CareBand capabilities to recognize and predict agitation.
The company is collaborating with the Regenstrief Institute,Indiana University School ofMedicine and several clinician-scientists with collaboration with Canada’s KITE-TorontoRehabilitation Institute.
