Health professionals in Forth Valley have become the first in the UK to recruit participants to a clinical trial which could track cognitive changes in adults with early onset or mild dementia.
Using specialist headsets, participants are asked to log into an app on a mobile tablet. The app has a variety of tasks and short ‘games’ for the user to complete at certain times during the day whilst recording EEG brain waves.
A headband used at night is also worn occasionally whilst sleeping to record EEG brain waves and sleep quality. The data from the headsets and sleep headbands are recorded and uploaded, via the participant’s WiFi at home, onto secure platforms.
The study is being carried out by the research team at Forth Valley Royal Hospital along with psychiatry colleagues at Stirling Health and Care Village and will last for around two years.
Patients with mild dementia will be benchmarked alongside someone who doesn’t have dementia and the responses will be compared. The cognitive tests are a mix of memory tests, language, fluency, attention and overall concentration.
NHS Forth Valley Clinical Research Nurse, Karen Petrie, said: “This is a really exciting study as we are assessing whether in future the headsets could be used as a diagnostic tool for dementia or to assess cognitive changes in the condition.”
The researchers are working with the Northern Ireland based company Cumulus Neuroscience who have developed the at-home EEG headset.
