Penn Gets $20M to Study Role of Remote Patient Monitoring for Alzheimer's

Researchers from Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania have received a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) that will help further their research about the use of remote patient monitoring to improve at-home care for individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and older adults.

The Penn Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratory for Healthy Aging (PennAITech) — with the help of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing and the Perelman School of Medicine — plans to use artificial intelligence, consumer informatics, and patient cohorts to develop the proper technologies.

George Demiris, PhD, a professor at Penn’s School of Nursing and the Perelman School of Medicine, Jason Karlawish, MD, a professor at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Jason Moore, PhD, a professor and chair of the department of computational biomedicine at Los Angeles-based Cedars Sinai, are leading the project.

“The overarching goal of our Collaboratory is to facilitate the development and dissemination of such tools to help aging Americans live safely, in optimal health, and remain socially engaged,” Demiris said in the press release. “To achieve this, we will develop and implement a national pilot project funding program for the development and evaluation of cutting-edge technology.”

By leveraging remote patient monitoring, the researchers aim to help older adults and adults with Alzheimer’s manage their chronic health conditions from the comfort of their own homes.

PennAITech intends to use artificial intelligence and other software to develop a remote monitoring system that can monitor patients at home, collect and process patient data, and integrate the data into the EHR along with other clinical data.

“Penn is uniquely poised to serve as a research and innovation accelerator based on our expertise in geriatric medicine, aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and biomedical informatics,” Karlawish stated in the press release. “We aim to advance the development of effective solutions that will be used in the real world and ultimately improve the lives of older adults and their caregivers.”

The project is expected to receive $20 million in grants over the next five years from the NIA, which is a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The grants will go toward various pilot projects that will focus on using technology and artificial intelligence to aid in care management for the targeted populations. Older adults, adults living with Alzheimer’s, and adults with similar diseases, such as Lewy Body Disease, stand to benefit from the remote patient monitoring technologies, the researchers said.

The pilot projects will prioritize administration, stakeholder engagement, technology identification and training, networking, ethical and policy issues, and clinical translation and validation, according to the press release.

Using remote patient monitoring and other mHealth technologies to aid in Alzheimer’s management is a common path for researchers and healthcare stakeholders.

In July, the pharmaceutical company Merck partnered with a digital health company to launch a remote patient monitoring program that used mHealth wearables and smartphones to monitor individuals living with Alzheimer’s.

The companies said that they hoped the remote patient monitoring platform would help providers with care coordination and care management, thus improving patient outcomes.

Additionally, Apple partnered with biotech company Biogen in January to launch a study that focused on determining if mHealth devices could help identify early signs of cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer’s.