If you’ve ever had a patient or loved one struggle with dementia, you’ve seen how much the condition can impact someone’s life. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines dementia as the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interfere with doing everyday activities. Dementia affects approximately 5 million adults aged 65 and older, and that number is expected to reach nearly 14 million by 2060. [i]
Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI), when used in healthcare, has the power to help dementia patients and those at risk of developing dementia.
How? Here’s a closer look at how the future of AI in healthcare can help dementia patients:
Providers can use AI to predict dementia
With the right tools, healthcare providers can use AI to predict the onset of dementia. For example, Lumiata uses AI and machine learning (ML) to analyze patient records and other relevant data, identify key risk factors, and predict the onset of dementia and other diseases. This insight allows providers to step in before a dementia diagnosis is ever given to help prevent or delay dementia onset.
To predict dementia cases, Lumiata’s technology looks at a variety of risk factors, including:
- Age
- Other Amnesia
- Acute stroke Hemorrhage
- Mild cognitive impairment, so stated
- Altered mental status, unspecified
- Unspecified intellectual disabilities
- Mood disorders
- Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders
- Count of Other screening for suspected conditions (not mental disorders or infectious disease)
- Unspecified abnormalities of gait and mobility
- Tobacco use
- Other and unspecified benign neoplasm
- Other injuries and conditions due to external causes
Earlier detection of these risk factors gives providers and patients more time to work on improving the patient’s health and potentially slowing or stopping dementia.
Providers can predict health issues that could contribute to dementia
A variety of factors contribute to a person’s likelihood of developing dementia, including age, genetics, family history, and more. Poor heart health – including issues like high blood pressure and high cholesterol as well as habits like smoking – increase the risk for dementia if not properly addressed [ii] Heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol may increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia. [iii]
These risk factors can also increase the risk of vascular dementia. Approximately 10% of dementia cases are linked to strokes and other problems with blood flow to the brain [iv]
Fortunately, Lumiata can also predict a number of these risk factors, including coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes type 2, acute stroke hemorrhagic, acute stroke infarction, and primary and secondary hypertension. When providers are aware of patients at risk of developing these issues, they can step in sooner and provide better care more specifically tailored to each patient’s health needs. By intervening sooner and providing more specialized care, providers may help prevent the onset of these health issues and thereby help reduce the risk for dementia.
Stroke, diabetes, and certain heart and blood circulation problems are also more common in people who have Alzheimer’s than the general population. [v] If a patient develops dementia, providers can continue using Lumiata to predict the onset of other health issues and help prevent the patient’s health from worsening.
AI gives providers more time to provide better care
Predictive analytics generated by AI in healthcare can help guide providers in their decision-making process, especially when dealing with patients at risk of developing dementia or related health concerns. When a provider sees that a patient has risk factors for dementia and is predicted to develop the disease, the provider can intervene promptly. By addressing these risk factors as soon as possible, providers can make sure patients get the specific care they need and help prevent or delay the onset of dementia. Intervening sooner also gives patients more time to address any lifestyle factors that could contribute to dementia, such as smoking, obesity, and lack of physical activity.
In addition to helping patients stay healthy, providing better care creates an improved patient experience. Patients want to know that providers are aware of their health status and risks and are looking out for their best interests. Using AI solutions like Lumiata is a great way for providers to accomplish this.
How Lumiata Works
Lumiata offers AI and ML tools for data science teams and business teams in healthcare.
Our Lightning AI Model Builder empowers you to build high-performing data models using healthcare-specific ML features and train on enormous data sets. Prefer a ready-made solution? Our Spectrum AI Model Catalog features more than 100 pre-trained models that can help you solve real problems in healthcare. Spectrum provides access to a clinical suite that’s up to 65% more accurate than the leading carrier and includes models for disease onset, chronic condition management, and hospitalization. Spectrum also provides access to a financial model suite that’s up to 80% more accurate than the nearest competitors’ cost prediction models and includes models for high-cost members patients, group cost, and stop-loss.
Lumiata can predict the onset of more than 20 diseases, including dementia, within the next 12 months. Our predictive analytics help you keep up with the needs of your patients in a modern way.
In order to generate high-quality predictions, we must input high-quality data. We start our AI and ML process by transferring your data to our ecosystem, performing data quality assessments, and validating and normalizing the data. Our smart cleaning algorithms then initiate a comprehensive data cleaning process to remove incomplete, incorrect, improperly formatted, and duplicate data.
Once your data has been cleaned, we enrich it with our own data, which we’ve drawn from medical knowledge, healthcare data, and clinical IP. We then create Lumiata Person360 objects, which are data artifacts optimized for ML consumption. At this point, your data is ready to be used to predict dementia and other diseases.
See what Lumiata can do for you
At Lumiata, we’re ushering in a new era of groundbreaking predictive analytics. Healthcare data that can’t be analyzed thoroughly and quickly is a problem, so we’re here to make your data more usable with help from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics.
Whether you want to predict dementia or need support in other areas of your business, such as data management, payment integrity, or telemedicine, Lumiata can help you realize desired outcomes and solve some of
today’s biggest healthcare challenges. Want to see what Lumiata can do for you? Request a demo here.