The Goizueta Institute @Emory Brain Health and Emory Healthcare are collaborating with digital health company Linus Health to implement innovative digital cognitive assessments for primary care patients. The collaboration is designed to evaluate and operationalize the use of advanced digital technology to help primary care providers (PCPs) spot Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias at their earliest stages and intervene as early as possible.
Traditional cognitive testing methods, largely paper-based, lack sensitivity and practicality for PCPs – those best positioned to uncover cognitive impairment as early as possible in their older adult patients. Linus Health’s technology, called Core Cognitive Evaluation, is an iPad-based cognitive assessment tool that has its roots in the long-established clock drawing test for detecting signs of cognitive impairment.
After acquiring DCTclock, a digital, AI-enhanced version of the clock drawing test, Linus Health expanded it with additional testing capabilities, integrated clinical pathway support for navigating next steps and actionable lifestyle-based intervention resources for patients. The digital tool offers a quick, sensitive and action-oriented approach to assess cognition that aims to be both provider and patient-friendly and a more feasible option for use in primary care settings.
“Identifying new approaches to detecting brain diseases at their earliest stages is a top priority for the Goizueta Institute’s initiative for personalized brain health,” says Allan Levey, MD, PhD, founding director of the Goizueta Institute @Emory Brain Health and director of the Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory.
“To achieve this, we not only need new, standardized tools for assessing cognition, but also increasingly personalized patient prevention and treatment strategies. We’re excited to partner with the Seavey Clinic and Linus Health to launch this critical initiative,” Levey says.
In the first phase of the collaboration with Linus Health, the Goizueta Institute @Emory Brain Health, a world-class clinical and research institute focusing on new ways to prevent, predict, diagnose and treat brain diseases, will begin using the new tool in the Seavey Clinic, Emory’s comprehensive internal medicine clinic providing state-of-the-art care. The goal is to establish effective new cognitive testing practices, clinical workflows and system integrations with participating providers at the Seavey Clinic before expanding within and beyond the clinic.
“Primary care has long been the lynchpin for getting ahead of diseases, and diseases of the brain are no exception,” says David Bates, PhD, CEO of Linus Health. “Emory Healthcare is a brain health pioneer and we are honored that they’ve chosen us to support their efforts to improve patients’ lives through earlier detection and intervention.”
An estimated 50 million people around the world currently have Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and that number is growing by almost 10 million people every year. Detecting early signs, namely at the mild cognitive impairment stage, maximizes the window of opportunity for intervention for patients – whether that involves clinical trials, existing drug treatments, lifestyle interventions or a combination thereof.