Integrated Cognitive Assessment’s speed, ease of administration and lack of learning effect enable monitoring of NHS patients with mild cognitive impairment
Vancouver, British Columbia, November 17, 2020 – Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd. (the “Company” or “Cognetivity”) (CSE: CGN; OTCQB: CGNSF; FWB: 1UB) today revealed that it has reached an agreement to deploy its Integrated Cognitive Assessment (ICA) in primary care as an artificial intelligence based digital tool to aid monitoring for UK National Health Service (NHS) patients with pre-dementia symptoms.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a condition characterised by noticeable decline in a person’s cognitive function that is not severe enough to be diagnosed as dementia. Roughly 10 percent of people with MCI develop dementia each year, yet existing care pathways fail to identify this progression in time due to a lack of MCI detection and monitoring capability. Instead, patients tend to return to primary care only when their dementia is in its later stages and the scope for effective treatment is considerably reduced.
Sunderland GP Alliance, a leading federation of 35 primary care practices in the north-east of England, has chosen to place the ICA at the heart of a novel approach to MCI monitoring. The Alliance, whose member practices cover around 250,000 patients, is set to offer periodic ICA tests to patients with MCI in an initial pilot program, enabling deterioration to be identified and treatment to begin as soon as possible. The pilot is part of collaborative work taking place across the City of Sunderland, known as ‘All Together Better’, whereby professionals across the entire health and social care sector are innovating at pace and scale by adopting new technologies to help revolutionise patient care and tackle health inequalities.
The ICA, Cognetivity’s flagship CE-marked medical device software, is a 5-minute computerised test of cognitive function, offering numerous advantages over traditional pen-and-paper examinations. Key among these are its short testing duration and classification accuracy, coupled with the absence of a learning effect or any cultural or educational bias. Since the test runs on an iPad, which is easily sanitised, the ICA can also comply with the highest standards of hygiene and infection control so critical during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
While the importance of monitoring MCI patients has long been recognised, the ICA plays a crucial role in making it practical and cost-effective, as Dr Sina Habibi, CEO of Cognetivity, explained. “We’re delighted to be working with Sunderland GP Alliance, an organisation with a reputation for innovation and clinical excellence,” he said. “Expanding on its use in the specialist care environment, the ICA is now showing its worth in primary care thanks to its speed, ease of administration and lack of learning effect. MCI monitoring has been made possible via our fundamentally different approach to cognitive testing – as far as we know, it’s a world first, which is enormously exciting.”
“With regulatory approval for the first disease-modifying therapeutic for Alzheimer’s possible in the next year, it has never been more important to be able to detect the earliest stages of this disease and allow treatment to be administered when it is most effective. Our ICA, taken at the primary healthcare level, is the ideal solution to making sure that as many people as possible receive life- changing treatment at the right time,” he added.
Jon Twelves, Chief Executive of the Sunderland GP Alliance, matched Dr Habibi’s enthusiasm for the deployment. “We see huge potential for this new pathway to improve clinical outcomes for patients experiencing cognitive decline,” he said. “Desirable as monitoring MCI patients may be,” he continued, “it has simply not been practical without the efficiency and objectivity of Cognetivity’s ICA. All health and care partners in Sunderland recognise the massive benefit cutting-edge technologies such as the ICA can have in tackling a major global healthcare problem like dementia; as such, we look forward greatly to seeing the ICA’s positive impact on the lives of our patients.”
About Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd
Cognetivity is a technology company that has created a cognitive testing platform for use in medical, commercial and consumer environments. Cognetivity’s ICA uses Artificial Intelligence and machine learning techniques to help detect the earliest signs of impairment by testing the performance of large areas of the brain to support diagnosis of dementia. It has achieved regulatory approval for clinical use in the UK and Europe with future clinical approval anticipated in North America and elsewhere in the world.
For more information, please visit: www.cognetivity.com
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
“Sina Habibi”
Chief Executive Officer and Director
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