ClearSky Medical Diagnostics has developed an intelligent medical device that can objectively diagnose mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition often suggested as an early stage of dementia.
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It is estimated that 5-20% of people aged over 65 have MCI, characterised by minor problems with cognition, such as memory or thinking.
ClearSky MD is a University of York spinout company that develops non-invasive medical devices for the diagnosis and monitoring of neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Its prototype diagnostic device – MCI-Monitor – is worn by a patient while undertaking a standard clinical test known as ‘the reach and grasp task’. The kinematic characteristics of reach-to-grasp actions and the visual attention while performing the task are captured by the MCI-Monitor and measured using AI-powered technology.
Software based on unique biologically inspired computer algorithms provide an immediate result based on quantitative measurement of the patient’s visuospatial ability, memory, and executive function – three important cognitive functions.
ClearSky’s initial studies have suggested that MCI-Monitor is able to differentiate between Parkinson’s with normal cognition, PD-MCI (Parkinson’s Disease MCI) and PDD (Parkinson’s Disease Dementia).
Professor Stephen Smith, founder of ClearSky Medical Diagnostics, said: “We are excited about the potential of MCI-Monitor to replace time-consuming and subjective conventional clinical tests to assist health care providers in making a diagnosis early, easily, and accurately.
“We’ve already applied our specialised ‘white-box’ machine learning algorithms across a number of devices to help diagnose and monitor neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and would love support to accelerate the development and testing of MCI-Monitor.”
The company is now seeking partners to collaborate on the development and launch of MCI-Monitor to the general population and is looking to achieve its third CE-marked product.
