Connection, Independence, and Circular Support: Prompted Health Awareness Enabled by the At-Home Health Station

ABSTRACT In 2020, the financial burden associated with the care and treatment of individuals afflicted by Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-Related Dementias (ADRD) amounted to $305 billion for a population of 6 million (including young onset disease), and 2050 projections indicate that the costs will quadruple while the number affected will exceed 13 million people. ADRD and cognitive impairment (CI) disability is characterized by a diminishing ability to learn, recall information, and make decisions and judgments, changes that threaten the CI/ADRD individual’s autonomy and ability to live independently. Access to the internet, smart devices, and telehealth have the potential to help people with CI/ADRD maintain independence, but current technologies can be difficult for these adults to use. B.A. Maze Inc. has designed a technology platform, the At-home Health Station (AHS), that is a plug-and-play modular system designed to use the circular economy to simplify the digital experience for the CI/ADRD-user and provide caregivers/administrator (AC) the ability to set unique prompted health reminders via a secure multi-device management AHS-Webapp. The AHS system will ensure consistent access to basic health measurements through remote patient monitoring (RPM) to promote health function and independence. Our goal is to develop appropriate RPM and care systems to enable long-term independence and health in people living with CI/ADRD and give caregivers a care and communication platform for proactive health decision-making. Our objective in this Phase I project is to advance the design of the AHS through usability testing and feedback from CI/ADRD individuals. The outcome of this development study will be an AHS design that achieves a System Usability Scale (SUS) of ≥70 and a cognitive baseline of usability for cognitively impaired adults aged 40+. The product of Phase I will be an AHS minimum viable product that will be further validated and prepared for commercialization in Phase II.