Challenge Works’ Caroline Purslow on how innovation can help people with dementia stay independent and live well for longer.
The world’s population is growing. It is also aging. Between 1974 and 2024, the percentage of people aged 65 and over across the globe almost doubled, from 5.5% to 10.30%. By 2074, this percentage is estimated to double again, to 20.7%.
As these people age, many of them will need additional support – particularly as neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s Diseases are predominantly associated with old age. For people aged between 65 and 69 for example, around two in every 100 have dementia. The risk increases with age, roughly doubling every five years. Of those aged…
Challenge Works’ Caroline Purslow on how innovation can help people with dementia stay independent and live well for longer.
The world’s population is growing. It is also aging. Between 1974 and 2024, the percentage of people aged 65 and over across the globe almost doubled, from 5.5% to 10.30%. By 2074, this percentage is estimated to double again, to 20.7%.
As these people age, many of them will need additional support – particularly as neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s Diseases are predominantly associated with old age. For people aged between 65 and 69 for example, around two in every 100 have dementia. The risk increases with age, roughly doubling every five years. Of those aged over 90, around 33 in every 100 people have dementia.
Each affected individual experiences neurodegenerative diseases and their range of symptoms differently and so their support needs and linked solutions too must vary from light touch actions such as setting medication reminders, to a full-time caregiver assisting someone with their daily routine.
Despite growing need, there is a chronic shortage of caregivers across the globe. 70,000 domestic care workers have left the sector over the last two years in the UK alone. In Australia, it’s predicted that 300,000 people could be on aged care waitlists by 2030.
Though progress is being made towards lasting drug treatments, we are many years away from a cure. Despite drugs such as lecanemab – slowing down memory decline – being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, the European Commission and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK, it is not yet available on the NHS.
While technology should never be perceived as a replacement for caregiving and drug treatments, I strongly believe it does have a role to play in empowering people living with a neurodegenerative disease to remain independent, helping them to live better for longer.
The importance of independence
When we talk about people remaining independent for longer, understanding what this means, and why it’s important is key. It’s not about keeping people isolated in their own home – remaining independent ensures people can keep doing the things, and connecting with the people they love; be it making a phone call to a loved one on a Sunday afternoon or brewing a cup of tea in their kitchen every morning.
Time and time again, research has demonstrated how enabling someone to live in their own home safely has a positive effect on their mental and physical state. For example, when people with dementia relocate, a decline in physical, mental, behavioral and functional wellbeing usually follows.
Current state of dementia technology
It’s encouraging to see rapid scientific and technological developments surrounding diseases like dementia that can for example, accurately identify key biomarkers, or better understand diagnostics. These help to inform our understanding of the disease to advance future treatment innovation, but it can’t translate to immediate, practical, everyday support for people now.
When it comes to “dementia technologies”, there is a gap in what’s available. The majority of existing technologies – pendant alarms, GPS trackers – focus on safety, not on empowering individuals to live as they always have done. Too often existing technologies have been repurposed or repackaged instead of being designed from the get-go for – and with – people living with dementia. There is a clear opportunity for innovators to create solutions that focus on supporting the individual’s wellbeing and quality of life.
While there is of course a need for monitoring technologies – to provide loved ones or carers peace of mind that the person they know living with dementia is doing so safely – considering the rapidly evolving technological landscape, shouldn’t we be striving for more than this? We should be focusing on solutions that place people living with dementia to enjoy their life independently for as long as possible – and this is where global innovation prizes and challenge-led programs can catalyze change.
Longitude Prize on Dementia
This technological gap is one that the £4m ($5.8m) Longitude Prize on Dementia set out to fill. The prize, funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK and designed and delivered by Challenge Works, is designed to drive the creation of personalised, technology-based tools that are co-created with people living with the early stages of dementia, helping them to live independent, more fulfilled lives and to keep being able to do the things they enjoy.
Launched in 2022, the prize initially received 175 submissions from 28 countries. From there, 24 teams were selected, from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, UAE, Colombia, Portugal and the Isle of Man. In 2024, five finalist teams from the US, UK, Australia and Portugal were selected and supported to develop their concepts into real-world products.
Today, we’re seeing these solutions come to fruition – with technologies ranging from AI glasses to help people living with dementia navigate their environment to a smartwatch that learns an individual’s daily routine and helps them to remember everyday tasks – both groundbreaking technologies that have the potential to be life changing.
The five finalists were awarded a share of £1.5m to develop their solutions, with the £1m first prize, to be awarded in 2026.
Co-created design
Critically, all prize teams are working with people with lived experience of dementia to ensure solutions are fully co-created and keep the end user front and centre in their design.
The prize features a multi-national Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), who play a central role in the judging process. The LEAP includes people living with the early stages of dementia, caregivers and former caregivers. It reviews team’s solutions and co-design processes and provides insights into how technologies could support and enable better living with dementia to ensure that products are fit for purpose and will benefit the people they were designed to serve.
Going beyond generalised gadgets
Helping people to age with dignity requires more than general at-home assistance gadgets – it requires careful, co-created solutions. Keeping people at the heart of innovation, just as the five finalists competing in the Longitude Prize on Dementia are doing, is essential to achieving this level of independence.
Technology should never be seen as a replacement for carers or human interaction – but rather as a purpose-built tool designed to empower people living with dementia to remain independent, so that they can continue to do the things they love.
About Caroline Purslow
As Head of Global Health at Challenge Works, Caroline oversees the design and delivery of the organization’s health portfolio of Prizes.
Currently Caroline is working on the design of a new international Longitude Prize, the Longitude Prize on ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or MND) hoping to deliver AI-led solutions to drug discovery. Previously at Challenge Works, Caroline has led the design and delivery of the Global Surgical Training Challenge with Intuitive Foundation and worked across the Longitude Prize portfolio of challenge prizes.
Prior to Challenge Works, Caroline has worked across a range of programme management and development roles in the life sciences including as Programme Manager for the Antimicrobial Resistance Programme at Public Health England and as a Senior Scientific Editor at Informa. With her original training in microbiology, Caroline has a passion for infectious disease, global health policy and public health.