Dementia screening app launched by UCL student startup Mindset
16 October 2020
The Mindset4Dementia app uses games and artificial intelligence (AI) to screen people for signs of dementia. It’s now free to download from the App Store.
![Mindset4Dementia is an app which can help spot signs of dementia A medical professional sits on a sofa with an older person who is looking at a mobile phone](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise/sites/enterprise/files/styles/large_image/public/mindset4dementia.jpg?itok=aiAmLf4s)
Mindset, cofounded by Hamzah Selim (UCL fourth year medical student), developed the app with a team of students and doctors.
After two years’ development, and with support from UCL, UCL Innovation & Enterprise and Imperial College London, the app is now available for Apple phones. It’s currently the fifth most popular medical app on the App Store.
The Mindset4Dementia app follows the NHS approach for dementia screening. It screens for neurological anomalies by using cognitive games. It also asks questions around age, health and lifestyle to assess:
- short and long-term memory concentration and attention span
- language and communication skills
- awareness of time and place.
Users of the app are not currently diagnosed, but the data collected is helping researchers to develop the app further. It could be used to diagnose patients in their own home in the future.
Mindset’s ambition is to pass information on to other healthcare institutions to improve dementia research. As well as have the app fully incorporated into the NHS.
Read the full story on the UCL News website.
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Photo © Mindset