AI and Alzheimer’s Disease: Market Trends You Need To Know

Artificial intelligence is an application most everyone is familiar with. Yet, the concept of what AI can do is continually evolving. New systems that are in the process of being developed are opening doors in fields not initially associated to ‘smart robots’ and similar images AI conjures up.

One of these industries is applications that aid in combating Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Enhanced equipment and functionality are allowing AI to revolutionize the process of fighting this insidious illness, from research and development to manufacturing and services.

Artificial intelligence is used mostly in AD diagnosis, therapy, health management and research; and covering neuroimaging techniques, clinical and psychometric factors, neurophysiology assessment, sociodemographic factors, evaluation of electronic health records and claims, genomics and patient monitoring.

As exciting as these developments are, there are some unresolved technical issues that pose a bit of a problem. Understandably, AI requires a large amount of computational power that at the current moment, is extremely hard, if not impossible, to come by on the computers we currently have.

As a result, most clinics can’t apply the solutions available. That being said, there are multiple development activities that are aimed at creating advanced algorithms that can be implemented through personal computers.

So what are some of these AI methods that are helping in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease?

1. Combination of different diagnosis methods: Traditional methods utilized for checking the progression of AD and diagnosing AD long before the disease occurs suffer in general from poor accuracy.
2. Multimodal Imaging: Multimodal imaging allows data to be collected using various neuroimaging methods can be assembled together to achieve a more reliable classification of the stage of the disease (mild cognitive impairment, moderate cognitive impairment, AD) or to improve the classification accuracy when there are limited data available.
3. Robotics: Could we really talk about AI and leave out robotics? Nope. Existing drugs alleviate some of symptoms, but they do not cure the disease, and their therapeutic effect only lasts a short time. Robots can help prevent rapid neurodegeneration of AD patients and help them to conduct a more normal life. These machines feature an AI- based voice dialogue system comprising a voice-text conversion module, an emotional dictionary database and a recovery module.

Market Trends and Projections for AI in Alzheimer’s Disease

• AI software, hardware and services related to AD are forecast to reach $182 million in 2024. While this is a relatively small market, it is growing at a very healthy CAGR of 21.8%.
• Machine learning accounts for the largest share of the AI in AD market, with projected revenues of $157 million in 2024 and a CAGR of 22%.
• The use of AI in Alzheimer’s is still affected by several issues, including the fact that medical data are in most cases complex and heterogeneous and contain background noise that cannot be easily removed by the algorithms.

Alzheimer’s is a vicious disease, one that takes no prisoners. But we are now able to tackle it from a new angle. One that’s made entirely possible by the advanced work in AI and computing. Soon, clinics will be armed with an entirely new set of tools. And the best part is, that future is a lot closer than some might think.

For additional intel into the global market for AI in Alzheimer’s Disease Market, download a free overview of our report, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Alzheimer's Applications.