# AURA-ALZ: Connecting Audio and Radio Sensing Systems to Improve Care at Home for Persons with Early Alzheimer's Disease Or Related Dementias And Their Caregivers

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2021 · $75,537

## Abstract

AURA-ALZ: Connecting Audio and Radio Sensing Systems to Improve Care at Home for Persons with
Early Alzheimer's Disease Or Related Dementias And Their Caregivers
ABSTRACT
In response to NOT-AG-20-034, the proposed Alzheimer’s-focused supplement will develop Connecting Audio
And Radio Sensing Systems To Improve Care At Home for persons with early Alzheimer's disease or related
dementias (ADRD) and their caregivers. The research proposed in this supplement aligns with the parent R01
study (R01LM013329). Persons with ADRD and their caregivers routinely confront various complex challenges
and experience huge care burden. A common practice in technology-assisted care intervention is to guide
patients and family caregivers through web and mobile phone-based training, health-vital monitoring, symptom
reporting, and providing feedback and advice. These intervention programs, while have been shown to be
effective, have three major demerits. First, a member of the care team (the patient or a family member) has to
actively measure and enter patient data into the system, which is error-prone, subjective, and sometimes,
forgotten. Second, web or mobile-based interactions can be cumbersome and demanding. Simple tasks like
entering data, assessing health status, or getting and responding to an alert require typing and clicking through
a series of electronic forms. Third, interactions between the system and the caregiver, especially when the
system needs to remind or confirm an intervention, simple notifications and messages on a smartphone/website
is often ineffective and unnoticed. To improve technology-based care interventions and to better serve persons
with ADRD and their caregivers, the proposed study will adopt a user-centered approach to adapt and extend
the AURA system that we have been developing in our ongoing R01. The research aims are: 1) Increase the
robustness of the AURA subsystems; 2) Engage stakeholders (persons with early ADRD, caregivers, clinicians)
to identify the needs of ADRD care and caregiving to help co-produce AURA-ALZ for persons with early ADRD
and their caregivers; 3) Determine the usability, acceptability, and feasibility of AURA-ALZ in 10 persons with
early ADRD and caregiver dyads' homes using mixed methods. Our current R01 aims to develop a technology-
assisted AURA system for patients who are post-surgical treatment for bladder cancer and their
caregivers. AURA passively monitors specific activities of a patient at home using WiFi signals, tailors natural
language responses of voice assistants based on the patient's state, and automates entering data into the
system to reduce the burden on the caregivers of cancer. AURA communicates with the care team in natural
languages for reminders and confirmation of collected information, which is intuitive, handsfree, and less
demanding. Building upon AURA, AURA-ALZ will have similar but enhanced features to address the unique care
needs of persons with ADRD and caregivers. This study a...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10289180
- **Project number:** 3R01LM013329-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** Shahriar Nirjon
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $75,537
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-09-10 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10289180

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10289180, AURA-ALZ: Connecting Audio and Radio Sensing Systems to Improve Care at Home for Persons with Early Alzheimer's Disease Or Related Dementias And Their Caregivers (3R01LM013329-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10289180. Licensed CC0.

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