Project

Mobile Music Diagnostics: Targeting Alzheimer's Disease

Groups

The scientific community is making marked progress in the area of Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatment: memory-related pharmaceuticals are available, the neurobiology of AD is fairly well understood, and the genetic underpinnings of the disease continue to be unraveled. However, despite these advances, it has been shown that individuals often present the symptoms of AD years before they seek a diagnosis. The barrier to treatment is the lack of structure with which to obtain a diagnosis or even predict the onset of disease in a stigmatized environment. With technology, we can build clinically valid assessment into the tools we use every day�the tools we care about. We are developing music tools to detect cognitive performance in the memory domains at risk of decline in the earliest stages of AD. These tools are mobile, longitudinal, and the patient is the first point of feedback.