The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded Stanford Medicine a five-year, $25 million grant to establish a center exploring how artificial intelligence can improve life for the aging population and for people with Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD), in collaboration with VA Palo Alto and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.
Memory loss is the best-known symptom of dementia, but other symptoms, such as agitation, sleep trouble, and depression, can have an even bigger impact on quality of life. There are many evidence-based treatments and therapies that can help. However, getting someone the exact help they need is difficult and can be a slow trial-and-error process.
The center, to be named the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratory (SU-AITC) for Precision Health and Interventions in Aging and AD/ADRD, is taking on this complicated problem with the help of AI.
To support clinicians, who often have limited time to assess a patient, an AI algorithm could be trained to analyze a huge amount of data about a particular person and make recommendations about which medications or interventions might help.
The center is led by three principal investigators: Ehsan Adeli, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, who directs the Stanford Translational AI in Medicine and Mental Health Lab; Feng Vankee Lin, PhD, RN, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and chief nurse for research at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System; and James Landay, PhD, professor of computer science and the Denning Director of Stanford HAI.
Ehsan Adeli, Feng Vankee Lin, and James Landay | Courtesy Stanford Medicine
“Personalizing treatment means understanding both the individual and how their needs change over time,” Adeli said. “By connecting what we learn from the brain with what we can observe in everyday life, AI could help clinicians choose an intervention, assess whether it is helping, and adapt care as the person’s needs evolve.” Adeli, who directs AI and innovation in precision mental health in Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, leads research connecting AI, contactless sensing, and brain imaging to better understand changes in behavior and brain health. His work brings a foundation for measuring symptoms in everyday life and developing more personalized interventions to the center.
“Doctors have clinical experience, but they don’t have the data to guide selection of the right intervention for individual patients,” Lin said. Lin has encountered many dementia patients on multiple medications to manage their various symptoms. Those medications may come with side effects and, even worse, may not improve quality of life. There are many proven nonmedicinal ways to help, she said, but interventions like exercise and neuromodulation take time and resources. “What AI can do is help tailor the intervention based on the patient’s characteristics,” Lin said.
Landay brings leadership in human-computer interaction and human-centered design, helping connect the center’s AI advances with technology that older adults, patients, caregivers, and clinicians can use in everyday care.
The new center will fund 10 to 15 research projects per year for five years. The projects will be focused on developing precision dementia interventions that use AI to deliver exactly what an individual needs. This could lead to new wearable devices, better computer programs to help with cognitive skills, neurotechnologies that personalize brain stimulation, or contactless sensing systems that track changes in movement and behavior at home to help assess treatment response. Other possibilities include robots that provide music therapy or help a person exercise.
The center is one of five across the country funded by the same NIH program to advance the use of AI for dementia.
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This story was originally published by Stanford Medicine.
