By Britt Massei
After 4 hours at my desk yesterday I realized I hadn’t taken a break. I hopped up to walk to the public restrooms outside my office suite, well positioned on the first floor of a medical office building. I was blocked from exiting by an elderly man, balancing on his walker, reading the Alz Meter flyers on my door. He couldn’t see me, blocked by the huge poster displaying our beautiful logo. I waited. Then I saw him take out his cell phone to take a picture, or perhaps to scan the QR code to download the app?! After a few moments I then saw him typing on his phone. I captured this picture, and then became overrun with emotion. I may have greatly underestimated the desire and technological capability of our older population to engage in a health app.
I created Alz Meter app to help people understand and improve their brain health using scientifically-backed lifestyle recommendations, in hopes that they may be part of the 40% that Prevent or Delay Alzheimer’s disease1. If not that fortunate, then perhaps Improve their symptoms or Slow the progression. We coined this “DIPS”.
Like most diseases that are impacted by lifestyle, the great hope is to Prevent the disease entirely. When we set out on our journey, we chose to target those in the 35-55 year old range. After all, studies show evidence of the disease is found 20 years before the first symptoms2. However, like those in the field of disease prevention and familiar with Present Bias are well aware, convincing people to take action before any symptoms occur is quite challenging.
I was introduced to the term Present Bias by my intern Maya recently. It’s so important to acknowledge and understand so we can more effectively accomplish Prevention: the only thing better than a Cure!
For now, it seems we need to shift our primary focus to the market that I largely overlooked, those not afflicted by Present Bias, those with early signs of dementia that are desperate for a solution. While they may be the most interested, we had doubts in their ability or interest in using an app. Seeing this gentleman nestled up to my door taking pictures has opened my eyes to the possibility of impacting the entire spectrum to DIPS Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
My Alzheimer’s Connections
Both of my grandfathers had dementia, one diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the other never formally evaluated, achieving 95 years of age with significant symptoms. My father, Robert C. Switzer, III, was an Alzheimer’s researcher at the NIH and in academia in the 70s and 80s before starting his own neurohistology research lab, where I later joined him for 18 years. During my tenure, I witnessed the downturn in investment in Alzheimer’s that accompanied the continual failures. The failures were and still are in large part due to the lack of our fully understanding of the disease. That led me to start my own company, Whole in One Health, to give people the tools to amass longitudinal data about their health, benefit from incredible insights and tools such as Alz Meter, and then share that data with their health care providers and with researchers. Looking closer at the image above, I suspect the briefcase resting on the seat of his walker is full of his own medical records.
- We recently applied for an NIH grant to help us improve the app so that we can have a maximum impact on society. 40%! That’s a huge number, and yet my personal opinion is that it’s likely far greater. ↩︎
- For the 98% of Alzheimer’s cases labeled late-onset, symptoms begin after 65. The 2% diagnosed prior to 65 are categorized as early onset and are entirely genetic. ↩︎
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