What you probably already know: Women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, dementia, and mild cognitive impairment issues as they age, making up more than 65% of the U.S.’s Alzheimer’s patients. Women in their 60s are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s over the rest of their life than breast cancer. By the time a woman is 45, her risk of Alzheimer’s is one in five, while a man’s is one in 10. Caregivers for people with cognitive issues are also predominantly women. Treatment for these disorders also costs on average $18,000 more per person per year. Meanwhile, scientific studies show that early cognitive training has the ability to delay cognitive decline by as much as 2.5 years. A new company hopes to address these issues using a combination of AI and a clinician-built cognitive training plan.
Why? At the current time, no cure exists for Alzheimer’s or similar cognitive disorders, so the best hope clinicians have is to strengthen the muscle that lies at the heart of these issues: the brain. New Days AI has built a way to exercise the brain without needing an on-site professional to help at a fraction of the cost of traditional memory care services.
New Days AI works by pairing patients with a clinician who then helps build a brain-training program meant to target the patient’s specific cognitive needs. The plan is then given to New Days’ AI agent, which they call “Sunny,” who then provides daily conversational prompts meant to help improve the targeted areas. “They could help the person, for example, have better memory processing speed and maintain it for a number of years,” said New Days AI Co-founder and CEO Babak Parviz. “Or they can re-enable a person to do what they really care about, but have lost their ability to do.”
What it means: The combination of regular telehealth sessions with licensed clinicians, and the daily AI-guided conversations can make a big different, Parviz says, for those who are in the earliest stages of decline. It asks the patient, for example, to recall something from their childhood, or talk about what happened when a friend visited a few weeks ago. The aim is to make the exercises fun and engaging, as well as conversational. This work can help people live independently for longer, as well, relieving the pressure put on the caregivers.
What happens now? New Days AI is beginning a randomized trial to further test how similar kinds of brain training can affect rates of decline in people with mild cognitive decline. The service is currently active in only a handful of states including Washington, California, Texas and Florida, but the company plans to continue expanding nationally in the coming years.
