Developing digital therapeutics tool for seniors to address challenges of ageing
Published: 26 Jan 2021
Photo Credit: Marsiling CC
One of the key challenges that Singapore faces today is its rapidly ageing population, and it is critical for healthcare services to remain accessible and affordable for the increasing number of seniors who live longer today, with varying health conditions.
To address the challenges of ageing, the Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) is pioneering efforts in the use of digital medicine to improve healthcare outcomes through targeted healthcare solutions and more effective interventions. To this end, the team at WisDM is embarking on its first partnership with a local community which will see the introduction of a digital therapeutics platform to allow seniors to remotely participate in multi-tasking training to address conditions such as cognitive decline, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and others.
Digital therapy involves the use of software or apps for treatment. Examples of treatment can include driving changes in behaviour, such as exercising more, or eating healthier. In this study, the WisDM team will be using a game, known as “Multi-Attribute Task Battery”, or “MAT-B” for multi-tasking training. By partnering with a leading animator, the game software has been re-imagined to make more user-friendly for seniors, so that users remain engaged with the digital therapy.
The game will be pre-loaded onto tablets to enable remote digital therapy, which is expected to increase uptake and sustained use by the seniors. On this portable, tablet-based game, users will have to complete multiple tasks in an air-flight control simulation setting, such as hitting a specific target, refueling oil tanks, and responding to audio commands.
All the data from the game, such as how long it takes for each user to complete the tasks, the levels of intensity they are completed at, and whether they are completed accurately, will be collected to track users’ performance levels over time. The WisDM team will then be able to construct individual performance profiles that can provide information on what is needed to personalise digital therapy for these users, to best combat cognitive decline.
Led by Professor Dean Ho, Director of WisDM, and Associate Professor Christopher Asplund, a cognitive neuroscientist from the Division of Social Sciences (Psychology), Yale-NUS College, who is also part of the WisDM team, a major goal of the programme’s deployment of remote digital medicine and therapeutics is the prevention of seniors from becoming patients. Through this study, the WisDM team hopes to obtain key insights on predictors of disease onset, and further enhance the tool to enable long-term and remote monitoring and management for chronic illnesses, decrease acute hospitalizations, make care more efficient for the existing senior population, and ultimately substantially improve senior healthcare outcomes.
With the capacity to serve as a simultaneous intervention and diagnostic gaming tool, the instrument is capable of picking up early indications of cognitive decline in seniors—this could lead to early intervention and improved healthcare outcomes. This will enable senior communities to continue doing things they value, keeping an active lifestyle and maintaining their social life, while addressing preventable care dependency. More importantly, this will empower seniors to be in control of their own health, and improve their overall quality of life in the long term.
The tool also allows for patient-centric care to be delivered to more people at lower costs, with easier access to healthcare from their homes, making care more efficient for the existing ageing patient population and reducing strain on the healthcare ecosystem.
Prof Ho said, “Working with a team of behavioural scientists who will conduct user experience and user interface studies to ensure that this technology is used in a continuous manner, the project is expected to play a key role in driving digital medicine-enabled, decentralised healthcare for seniors.”
In this study, the WisDM team will be partnering Marsiling Grassroots Organisations (GROs), which have identified Sunlove Marsiling Senior Activity Centre (SAC), which serves 500 residents, as the institution to launch this pilot programme. The first tranche of the programme will involve up to 75 seniors aged 60 and above. Participants involved in the programme are residents who often engage in activities at the centre. Some of them also face certain ageing-related challenges and are undergoing treatments to manage their health conditions.
The WisDM team is working closely alongside Marsiling GROs and Sunlove Marsiling SAC to ensure that every aspect of the study, from the instruction manuals to layout of the game, is developed for optimal and sustained use by the community.
WisDM is one of nine new Translational Research Programmes (TRPs) at NUS Medicine aimed at creating a strong and coherent scientific base to deliver impactful and meaningful research outcomes for the School and Singapore’s health system. Besides digital medicine, the other areas are Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Healthy Longevity, Human Potential, Immunology, Infectious Diseases, Precision Medicine and Synthetic Biology.
These nine key focus areas, which are multi-disciplinary, and health and disease-based will create greater synergies and collaboration between basic scientists and clinician scientists, strengthen programmatic research and deliver research outcomes to address clinically relevant issues and applications that are aligned to national priorities.
