Recommendations for ICT use in Alzheimer's disease assessment: Monaco CTAD Expert Meeting

Abstract

Alzheimer disease (AD) and other related dementia represent a major challenge for health care systems within the aging population. It is therefore important to develop better instruments for assessing disease severity and disease progression to optimize patient's care and support to care providers, and also provide better tools for clinical research. In this area, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are of particular interest. Such techniques enable accurate and standardized assessments of patients' performance and actions in real time and real life situations. The aim of this article is to provide basic recommendation concerning the development and the use of ICT for Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. During he ICT and Mental Health workshop (CTAD meeting held in Monaco on the 30th October 2012) an expert panel was set up to prepare the first recommendations for the use of ICT in dementia research. The expert panel included geriatrician, epidemiologist, neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, ICT engineers, representatives from the industry and patient association. The recommendations are divided into three sections corresponding to 1/ the clinical targets of interest for the use of ICT, 2/ the conditions, the type of sensors and the outputs (scores) that could be used and obtained, 3/ finally the last section concerns specifically the use of ICT within clinical trials.