CareYaya Health Technologies recently launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered large-scale language model called MedaCareLLM, designed to help dementia andAlois Alzheimer (1864-1915), German psychiatrist and neuropathologistpatients to improve their daily lives. This technology is integrated intoSmart glassesin which video data and facial and object recognition technology are used to provide real-time "life-changing" assistance to patients.
When a patient wears these smart glasses, the AI recognizes familiar faces. Upon recognition, the system translates the person's information into cues that are delivered directly to the wearer's ears through bone conduction headphones or hearing aids. This feature helps patients overcome confusion and embarrassment due to memory loss and makes it easier for them to recognize family and friends. In addition, the smart glasses can read information from medication bottles and remind patients when to take their medication, providing guidance on dosage and timing, reducing the risk of medication misuse and taking pressure off caregivers.
CareYaya also develops advanced AI models by collecting video, audio and visual data captured by the smart glasses to better recognize and track patients' disease progression and daily eating patterns. This technology is designed to improve the quality of life for dementia patients.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, there are currently nearly 7 million people living with the disease in the U.S., and that number is projected to increase to nearly 13 million by 2050. Along with this, health and long-term care costs for people with dementia are expected to reach $360 billion in 2024 and approach $1 trillion in 2050.
Neal K. Shah, CEO and co-founder of CareYaya Health Technologies, said they hope to fill an important gap that exists in dementia research, especially among the black elderly population. Black seniors are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as whites, and there is currently a relative dearth of clinical trials and research. He noted that MedaCareLLM will help improve this situation by providing a more representative dataset to advance Alzheimer's disease treatment research.
The development of MedaCareLLM was supported by the Johns Hopkins University Collaboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Technology, AARP's AgeTech Collaborative, and the National Institutes of Health. The technology was developed as part of the OpenMind project to build multi-modal datasets of cognitive and neurological data on older adults. The company demonstrated it live at the TechCrunch Disrupt2024 event in October.