UK sets aside £2m for digitally-enhanced dementia tests
Prof Vanessa Raymont of the University of Oxford, who is co-leading the READ-OUT trial.
The UK government is providing £2 million ($2.6 million) in funding to allow digital assessment to be added to a highly-anticipated trial of blood tests for diagnosing dementia.
The new money will support adding a digital cognitive test to the protocol of the READ-OUT study, which launched last year with £5 million in financial backing in the hope of finding rapid tests that could be rolled out by the NHS within five years.
The first of a target 5,000 subjects were enrolled into the trial earlier this year after attending memory clinics, with the goal of finding improved methods of diagnosing a range of dementia types, including Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies.
Thanks to the top-up in funding from Innovate UK, READ-OUT will now also use an online test to measure memory and cognition, which will take around 10 minutes to carry out, to see how they may be used alongside the blood tests to enhance the information gathered.
Only two out of three people with dementia in the UK ever receive a formal diagnosis, and the current gold standard diagnostic tests – lumbar punctures to sample cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and PET scans – are costly and invasive. At the moment, initial tests are carried out using traditional pen and paper techniques, such as asking them to draw a clock face.
Alzheimer's Research UK said that the enhancement to the READ-OUT study could lead to a faster and more accurate diagnosis for dementia than current methods. Currently it can take up to a year – or even longer in deprived areas – for someone to get a diagnosis once they come forward with concerns about their memory and thinking.
Eventually, it is hoped that the digital tests would link into the NHS App and make it easier for people to get referrals to memory clinics.
"Our approach will allow us to understand if such a combination of tests could be helpful and cost-effective to roll out across NHS memory clinics and beyond," said Professor Vanessa Raymont at the University of Oxford, who is co-lead for READ-OUT.
Four new research projects
Also this week, the UK government announced funding for four research projects designed to help patients with dementia live more independently in their own homes.
A University of Sheffield project will develop technologies to help dementia patients communicate as their disease progresses, while a team at Heriot-Watt University will work on devices that can help to anticipate and potentially even slow progression of dementia symptoms.
Northumbria University is tasked with developing a framework for local hubs in rural and remote areas, where dementia patients can access technology to help them with everyday tasks, and Imperial College London will work on tools to support independent living and using artificial intelligence to support data analytics.
