The Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis has selected Datacubed Health’s mobile platform has been selected to support worldwide studies for those at risk of Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Disease, a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. The Linkt platform enables the collection of real-time data on sleep, diet and other biomarkers using a “bring your own device” (BYOD) study model.
Datacubed Health’s app, platform and web-based portal will be used by scientists at the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) at the. The DIAN research incorporates an observational study, clinical drug trials, a research registry, and smaller ancillary studies. Datacubed Health’s tools will enable researchers to collect data that is more representative of natural settings while reducing participant burden.
The app and portal utilize a gamified experience with rewards for completion and compliance. Participants navigate an interactive map journey creating variable rewards such as digital gems and visual progress as they complete articles, surveys and tasks. Datacubed Health’s tools allow researchers and study coordinators to enroll participants, monitor real-time progress and compliance dashboards, manage incentives and review study data.
The Linkt app and portal will also be used to support a registry for families confirmed or suspected to have the disease and a longitudinal observational study of family members with parents who have the gene mutation associated with the disease. With research suggesting that brain changes occur years before symptoms develop, the goal is to identify these changes in presymptomatic carriers. Ultimately, researchers hope to develop therapies to detect and treat DIAD at its earliest stages – or prevent it altogether.
“The DIAN study represents one of the most important opportunities to understand Alzheimer’s disease,” said Eric McDade, Principal Investigator for the DIAN Expanded Registry. “We are excited to partner with Datacubed Health in order to bring a new set of tools to interact with our participants and collect information outside of the typical research environment.”
Datacubed Health’s mobile health platform is designed for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Participants can use the app on their own smartphones and tablets, rather than on devices provisioned by researchers.
Evidence suggests that the BYOD approach has clear advantages over the provisioning of phones. The rate of survey and diary compliance with BYOD ranges between 87 percent and 96 percent compared to 60 percent to 80 percent with a provisioned device, a difference that reflects the high levels of contact consumers have with their own phones throughout the day.
“We are excited and honored to be supporting DIAN in this extremely important work,” said Paul W. Glimcher, Chief Executive Officer of Datacubed Health. “Through remote and real-time monitoring of a wide range of biomarkers, we will be able to provide DIAN with access to both Clinical Outcomes and real-world data, even real-world data from nonclinical environments. And as is typical for our platform, by allowing participants to use the app with their own phones, Washington University/DIAN researchers will look to achieve an even higher participant compliance than is typical in studies of this kind.”