Two Technologies That Can Make Diagnosing Dementia Easier for Doctors and Patients
(Source: The Brink)
Dr. Vijaya Kolachalama, Associate Professor of Medicine and CBM faculty member, was quoted in the Brink article “Two Technologies That Can Make Diagnosing Dementia Easier for Doctors and Patients.” The article also featured more information about a deep learning algorithm he and his team developed. See below for a an article preview and click the link to read the full article.
Predicting Alzheimer’s with Artificial Intelligence
To diagnose dementia, physicians typically perform cognitive tests on attention, memory, problem-solving, and other abilities, along with a physical exam, blood tests, and brain scans. This battery of evaluations can help determine whether the memory issues a person is experiencing are caused by Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
“Patients walk in and doctors have to try to understand where they fall on the dementia spectrum,” says Vijaya B. Kolachalama, a BU School of Medicine assistant professor and expert on using computers to aid medical diagnoses. He and his team developed a deep learning algorithm that, for the first time, attempts to predict where a person falls on the dementia spectrum and identify if their memory loss is due to dementia or other reasons.