According to the W.H.O., 1 in 9 of the World’s population suffers from a neurological disorder.  

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One of the most prevalent neurocognitive disorders is Alzheimer’s, affecting 55 million people globally and this is expected to increase 40% by 2030 to 78 million.  By the age of 85 the occurrence of Alzheimer’s or Dementia increases to 1 in 3 people.

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Other neurodegenerative diseases include multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s. These diseases impact to varying degrees the cognitive and motor functions of individuals.  

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Digital health and artificial intelligence company ViewMind have developed a one-of-a-kind solution for precision diagnosis of neurocognitive health and neurological disease management.  

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Precision eye movement diagnostics

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ViewMind technology is based on visual stimuli in a VR headset, eye movement pattern responses and AI to assess a range of neurocognitive conditions, with a timely, non-invasive, affordable diagnosis that works independent of a person’s age, culture and education.

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One of the challenges with neurological disorders is that they can go unnoticed for many years before the symptoms become evident. This is due to the incredible plasticity of the brain to work around impairments by using healthy neurons until these compensatory actions are no longer possible. Consequently, neurological disorders are very difficult to diagnose, delaying potential treatment for perhaps many years or even decades. The pathology of Alzheimer’s can progress for several decades before symptoms are noticed.

The future of brain health must be more about prevention rather than late diagnosis when damage may have progressed to a point where it becomes difficult if not impossible to reverse.

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Earlier diagnosis and intervention has made a huge impact in recent years across the healthcare continuum for diseases including; breast cancer, colon cancer and cardiovascular disease. The same principle can be applied to neurological health. Earlier detection has the potential to foster more innovation in the pharmaceutical industry by enabling treatments to be developed that modify the disease earlier in the pathology, by better identifying the ideal cohort to provide the drug to and to then measure the impact of treatment.

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ViewMind enables healthcare professionals to monitor brain functionality and small changes that occur over time that would otherwise remain undetected.

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Studies including one published in the Lancet in 2020, suggest that up to 40% of dementia cases may be preventable by treating 12 risk factors that are believed to contribute. There are positive steps individuals can take today to preserve brain health.

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Additionally ViewMind technology accuracy elevates the standardised evaluation for identifying patients for effective treatments and measuring their progress over a period.

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Eye-tracking analysis

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The ViewMind hardware is provided through partnership with Hewlett Packard (HP), comprised of a HP Omnicept Reverb G2 virtual reality (VR) headset with eye-tracking, connected to an HP laptop with the processing capability to support virtual reality, and ViewMind software.

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Precision diagnosis of neurocognitive health

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ViewMind’s innovative technology will see multi-sector benefits for medical and health care professionals through early diagnosis enabling a sector wide preventative approach, timely diagnosis and evidence-based disease management solutions involving the ability to measure the impact of treatment in short time increments and providing the physician with the data they need to make the best clinical decisions.

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Early timely detection of neurological diseases and the stage of progression has the potential to lead to more personalised treatments and better patient outcomes, impacting the lives of millions of patients and families.

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