Phase II year
2020
(last award dollars: 2021)
Phase II Amount
$2,491,851
Almost 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or AD-related dementias, and the numberof affected individuals is rapidly growing. Symptoms include impaired cognition, resulting in difficulty inperforming daily activities and consequent functional dependence on others. The progressive nature of AD andADRD can result in increasing degrees of care required from professional and family caregivers. Non-pharmacologic interventions positively influence cognition, mood, and other behavioral and psychologicalsymptoms of dementia, and one well-established intervention, life story work (the use of written and oral lifehistories), serves as an effective technique that can elicit conversation and memories in those with AD andADRD. However, generating useful life story materials is a time-consuming task for caregivers. To overcomethis barrier, LifeBio Inc. is developing a reminiscence therapy platform -LifeBio MemoryTM- with a novelmachine-learning-based application that converts speech to text and generates life stories to serve as aninteractive 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 andultimately deliver personalized, point-of-care reminiscence therapy exercises for patients. In preliminary worksupporting this Direct-to-Phase II proposal, LifeBio Inc. partnered with the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging toconduct a pilot study in nursing homes, which showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms amongparticipants in LifeBio Inc.'s intervention and revealed that the majority of participants considered knowledge oftheir life story to be important for caregivers, while caregivers also reported positive experiences in relation tothe impact of the intervention on caregiving. In this project we will: 1) Develop prototype enhancements of theexisting LifeBio program and conduct focus group evaluations of these prototypes with 12 existing or formerLifeBio users, 20 dementia care professionals familiar with LifeBio and 6 older adults with early-stage dementiato help maintain person-centered practices throughout the research process; 2) Finalize the LifeBio Memoryproduct, which will include the development of a system to automatically record and process individuals' lifestories. 3) Conduct a full-scale fidelity trial of the complete package with 40 care professionals and 160 dementiacare dyads across within an assisted living setting. The product of this Direct-to-Phase II proposal, LifeBioMemoryâ¢, will be a novel, scalable, and easily implemented solution through which caregivers and healthcareproviders can offer person-centered care to people living with AD and AD-related dementias.
Public Health Relevance Statement: 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.
Project Terms:
