An Innovative Platform for Objective Monitoring of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living

ABSTRACT
With a Phase I II STTR grant award from NIABioSensics in collaboration with Baylor College of MedicineBCMsuccessfully developed and commercialized an advanced physical activity monitoring systemPAMSysfor older adultsPAMSys enables continuous remote monitoring of physical activityfall riskand
fall incidentsThe fall detection technology of PAMSys has become the gold standard in the medical alert
industry through multiple licensing agreementsTo datemore thanmedical alert devices with
BioSensics technology have been sold by our licensing partnersHoweverPAMSys is not capable of
monitoring Instrumental Activities of Daily LivingIADLsuch as cookingshoppingand managing medicationMonitoring IADL is essential for timely diagnosis of dementiamonitoring disease progressionand determining
when additional care services are neededIn one of our pilot clinical studies using PAMSyswe identified
specific activity patternse gtransitions between different posturesshort walking boutsin individuals with
cognitive impairment who were monitored during activities of daily livingIn additionBioSensics has developed
an initial prototype of a smart wireless devicecalled CliQthat enables interactions with objects at homewhile
also simplifying the user interaction with smart home devices and smartphone appsArmed with this technical expertise and pilot clinical datawe propose to design and commercialize a platform
for continuous monitoring of IADLThis innovative solutioncalled IADLSysis based on the following three
technologies that will work collectively to provide crucial insight into deterioration in cognitive status and
trajectory toward loss of independencewireless tags that are attached to various objects of interest in the
user s living environmenta wearable sensor that measures physical activityas well as proximity to the
wireless tagsandsoftware that unobtrusively monitors the usage of applications associated with daily
functioning and social engagement to provide a picture of the user s virtual IADL to complement the monitoring
of their physical IADLusage time onlyno private application data is monitoredIADLSys also includes a hub
to transfer all data to a secure backend server that will be used for data storage and processingIn Phase Iwe will design an initial version of IADLSys and examine the feasibility of the proposed platform for
identifying IADL of interestincluding using a telephonepreparing a mealdoing laundrytaking medicationvacuumingand others in the target populationIn Phase IIwe will complete the development of IADLSys
including implementation of live uploading protocols and the cloud computing backend to host collected dataA
robust data security architecture will be implemented to protect patient s privacyIn additionwe will carry out a
clinical study to evaluate if the data gathered and analyzed by IADLSys can discriminate those with Mild
Neurocognitive Disorderpreviously termed Mild Cognitive Impairmentand Major Neurocognitive Disorder
due to Alzheimer s DiseaseADwith mild severityfrom cognitively intact aged matched healthy individuals Project Narrative
Assessment of Instrumental Activities of Daily LivingIADLincluding cookingshoppingand managing
medication is essential for timely diagnosis of dementiamonitoring disease progressionand determining
when additional care services are neededTypicallyIADL assessments are subjectiveonly done at initial
diagnosisand rarely performed remotelyThis grant application proposes the design and commercialization of
a robust platform for objective and continuous remote monitoring of IADL in older adults at risk for dementia or
Alzheimer s disease