UMass Amherst’s new research center uses artificial intelligence to improve home care for older patients

What’s next in the ever-developing industry of heart rate monitoring watches and voice answering phones? According to the newly donated Massachusetts Research Center leader, the artificial intelligence built into the device could help improve the quality of home care for the elderly.

Announced this week, the University of Massachusetts Amherst-based Massachusetts AI and Connected Care Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease Technology Center will use AI to modernize the home care industry with new and existing technologies. Cooperate with the confluence. Patients with age-related illness or Alzheimer’s disease.

The project aims to address what the founders consider to be the “major medical disparity” and allows older people to make difficult choices.

“More than 90% of older Americans prefer to stay home as they get older,” a press release announcing the new center. “But the epidemic of chronic diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, can overwhelm the goal of successful aging at home without substantial support.”

Computer scientists and doctors from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brandeis University, and Northeastern University have collaborated on the study with a grant of approximately $ 20 million from the National Institute of Aging, which will be distributed over the next five years. Funded by money.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform key areas of science and medicine, but it’s very important to bring the power of AI to patients, caregivers and clinicians who need it most,” research said. Paul Anderson, Senior Vice President of Education, said. Said in a press release at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “This grant will bring together state-wide experts to address this important gap.”

If successful, research will use AI to provide, manage, and adapt treatment and intervention regimes for people suffering from aging. So what does it look like?

A key factor is that Deepak Ganesan, a professor at Robert and Donna Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst, says it will improve technologies already present on devices such as smartphones and Apple Watch.

“”[We] We may consider leveraging existing mobile and wearable devices, such as smartphones, in new ways, “he said in an email. “For example, you can use voice-based dialogue with your smartphone to examine changes in voice patterns that can be used to detect subtle changes in cognitive and physical function in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.”

Devices like the Apple Watch and Fitbits that track the wearer’s steps aren’t tuned to track slow speeds, which can be inaccurate for older users, he said. Also, the new sleep tracker can lose the accuracy of users with sleep disorders or who wake up to take medication.

“Part of the focus is on adapting the algorithm so that it can be more accurate when monitoring older people with different disabilities,” says Ganesan.

The center will also support new technologies, such as devices that allow patients to be monitored without wearing anything, he said.

And a key element of the study is to extract the data collected from the patient cohort and present it to patients, caregivers, and clinicians in a digestible manner. Adapted technology and data can be combined to create a new system for monitoring elderly patients who want to stay home and send help when needed.

“Developing AI-enhanced sensing technology that works for the people who work where they are is a difficult problem,” Ganesan said in a press release. “How do you get good and useful data? How do you analyze this data and present it to patients, caregivers, and clinicians? And how do you get problems? Can you intervene in a timely manner? “

Andrew Blinkers can be reached at [email protected].. Follow him on Twitter. @andrewnbrinker..