Development of a reminiscence therapy online platform with machine learning to increase engagement with people living with dementia and their care partners

PROJECT SUMMARY Almost 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or AD-related dementias, and the number of affected individuals is rapidly growing. Symptoms include impaired cognition, resulting in difficulty in performing daily activities and consequent functional dependence on others. The progressive nature of AD and ADRD can result in increasing degrees of care required from professional and family caregivers. Non- pharmacologic interventions positively influence cognition, mood, and other behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, and one well-established intervention, life story work (the use of written and oral life histories), serves as an effective technique that can elicit conversation and memories in those with AD and ADRD. However, generating useful life story materials is a time-consuming task for caregivers. To overcome this barrier, LifeBio Inc. is developing a reminiscence therapy platform —LifeBio MemoryTM— with a novel machine-learning-based application that converts speech to text and generates life stories to serve as an interactive tool to cultivate communication between people living with dementia and their family and caregivers. The LifeBio MemoryTM platform application will elicit and store individuals’ stories, photos, and videos and ultimately deliver personalized, point-of-care reminiscence therapy exercises for patients. In preliminary work supporting this Direct-to-Phase II proposal, LifeBio Inc. partnered with the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging to conduct a pilot study in nursing homes, which showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms among participants in LifeBio Inc.’s intervention and revealed that the majority of participants considered knowledge of their life story to be important for caregivers, while caregivers also reported positive experiences in relation to the impact of the intervention on caregiving. In this project we will: 1) Develop prototype enhancements of the existing LifeBio program and conduct focus group evaluations of these prototypes with 12 existing or former LifeBio users, 20 dementia care professionals familiar with LifeBio and 6 older adults with early-stage dementia to help maintain person-centered practices throughout the research process; 2) Finalize the LifeBio Memory product, which will include the development of a system to automatically record and process individuals’ life stories. 3) Conduct a full-scale fidelity trial of the complete package with 40 care professionals and 160 dementia care dyads across within an assisted living setting. The product of this Direct-to-Phase II proposal, LifeBio Memory™, will be a novel, scalable, and easily implemented solution through which caregivers and healthcare providers can offer person-centered care to people living with AD and AD-related dementias.PROJECT NARRATIVE Non-pharmacological interventions and person-centered care strategies are important elements of care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Life story work, which uses written and oral life histories to elicit conversation and memories, is an effective intervention for individuals with dementia; however, because of the time-consuming nature of generating useful life story materials, has not been widely implemented in nursing homes and other care environments. LifeBio Inc. will develop an easy-to-use reminiscence therapy platform —LifeBio MemoryTM— with a novel machine-learning-based application that converts speech to text and generates life stories to serve as an interactive tool to cultivate communication between people living with dementia and their family and caregivers.