The Collaboration and Harmonization of Digital Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Research

Abstract

Background: Among prominent unmet needs of the Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) research community is the ability to leverage opportunities to improve the assessments of persons with and at risk for ADRD. This vision can be realized by providing the tools and infrastructure to transform dementia assessment using remote sensing and digital technologies, pervasive computing, and wireless communications, all in concert with high dimensional data analytics. The Collaborative Aging Research using Technology (CART) initiative (carthome.org), a non‐proprietary, sharable end‐to‐end system for capturing and handling diverse kinds of digital data has been developed. The CART technology platform offers the opportunity to bring new assessment methodology and data types to NIA Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers (ADRC) and related centers and transform the clinical research enterprise. Herein we report on progress in capturing digital data across multiple ADRC’s. Method: Participants were recruited from affiliated studies at five NIA ADRC’s (Digital Technology Core at Oregon Health & Science University, Minority Aging Research Study at Rush University, Cognitive Empowerment Program at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, ALLFTD study at University of California San Francisco, and a pilot study of Mexican Americans at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio). Field technicians at each center installed the CART technology platform in the home of each participant. Result: A total of 195 research participants have been enrolled across the 5 centers and followed for a median of 19 months (range 1‐46). A summary of the center cohorts is provided in the table. The flexibility of the platform and its components has allowed it to successfully be adapted for research in each of these studies with diverse cohorts, use cases, and research aims. Attrition due to technology concerns has been very low (0.5%). Conclusion: Digital biomarker and related data can be readily captured across diverse cohorts, research teams, and settings using a common platform. The largely passive, continuous, and objective data generated with this approach promises to improve the opportunity to create more quantitative and ecologically valid measurements for ADRD phenotypes within the ADRD research community and related research settings.