Developing a Personalized and Culturally Responsive Virtual Coach to Engage Persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias in Cognitive and Physical Activities

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Project Summary The number of Americans living with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) is estimated to double to 13.8 million people by 2050, with minoritized individuals affected disproportionately. Cognitive, physical, and social activities can improve quality of life, cognition, and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), but access, engagement, and adherence are challenging. ADRD specialists are expensive and inaccessible for daily support, especially for persons living with dementia (PL WD) from minoritized backgrounds who cannot find culturally competent providers. Support groups do not provide scalable, individualized, evidence-based skills or daily guidance, and caregivers are already overburdened assisting with activities of daily living. Commercial solutions to support PLWD are not culturally responsive or scalable for daily, affordable use. There is an increasingly unmet need for culturally relevant, accessible, and scalable ADRD care. We are developing a personalized and culturally responsive virtual coaching platform to engage and support PLWD in evidence-based cognitive and physical activities in order to enhance health and well-being. Our novel technology leverages advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to facilitate activities from peer-reviewed interventions at lower costs. In each session, an avatar is used to guide and support the PLWD through evidence-based cognitive and physical activities. To engage PLWD, our NLP-based system adapts the coach’s dialogue based on input shared by the PLWD and their family on key aspects of the PLWD's life history and culture (e.g., favorite holidays, music genres, foods). The avatar coach also has characteristics tailored to the PLWD’s preferences (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, age) and offers social support to encourage adherence with check-ins, praise, and motivational words. Our user interface is designed for PLWD to easily speak to and see their personal virtual coach on a large-screen device with a microphone and camera (e.g., iPad, computer). In Phase 1, we will develop a personalized and culturally responsive virtual coach prototype that delivers evidence-based cognitive and physical activities and test initial usability/feasibility for racially and ethnically diverse persons with mild ADRD and their caregivers. By digitizing activities and increasing personal and cultural relevance, the coaching platform will support PLWD and their caregivers by improving access, engagement, and adherence to evidence-based interventions to enhance health and well-being.