The Longitude Award for Dementia awarded CrossSense a £1 million prize. CrossSense is a personalized AI-powered assistant for smart glasses that identifies everyday objects and guides people with early-stage dementia through daily activities.
Smart glasses capture the environment of people living with dementia, and AI interprets that information to help users take the actions that define their independence.
By asking gentle prompts, CrossSense’s AI companion understands and learns from a person’s unique ways of doing things, adapting to each user’s needs as dementia progresses.
Szczepan Orlins, CEO of CrossSense Ltd, commented: “This technology is designed to support daily life, integrating multiple senses to simplify important tasks.
“We are grateful to the people living with dementia and their families who have helped shape it. This win brings us closer to opening Cross Sense to the public sometime next year.”
The importance of longitude awards in dementia
Dementia is a progressive disease and there is currently no cure. Around 1 million people in the UK live with dementia, and this number is predicted to rise to 1.4 million by 2040.
The number of people living with dementia around the world is predicted to increase significantly from approximately 57 million in 2019 to more than 150 million by 2050.
The Longitudinal Prize in Dementia is funded by the Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK and delivered by Challenge Works.
This has facilitated the creation of personalized technology-based tools, created in collaboration with people with dementia, to help them maintain their independence at home.
“Innovate UK has been a proud supporter of the Longitude Award since its creation in 2014 and has partnered with many companies working in the dementia space, including CrossSense,” explained Dr Stella Peace, Managing Director of Innovate UK.
“By supporting pioneering companies, Innovate UK is helping to drive growth while bringing practical, life-enhancing solutions into people’s everyday lives.”
Supporting the daily life of dementia patients
The CrossSense team trained the technology using dozens of everyday activities, including getting dressed, safely performing household chores, making tea, and interacting with loved ones.
The AI companion asks helpful questions and provides prompts, so users can make their own choices and discuss what to do if they can’t remember a particular step in a process.
AI companions use smart glasses to provide cognitive stimulation, encouraging people to think, talk, and imagine, and allowing individuals to continue seeing relationships between things.
This helps maintain neural connections, slows cognitive decline in early stages of dementia, and improves quality of life.
Innovations in smart glasses show improved capabilities
Working with the University of Sussex and a panel of people living with dementia, the team observed improvements in some users’ ability to name objects and other cognitive abilities, including visual-spatial understanding, short-term memory, and working memory.
The award’s international expert jury agreed that the smart glasses solution is a true breakthrough technology with revolutionary potential for dementia patients and their families.
Helping people with dementia maintain their independence
Carol Grieg, 70, from Sutton, left her career in a high street bank seven years ago to work as a consultant to people with dementia.
After spending several fulfilling years helping others, Carol herself was diagnosed with a mild form of Alzheimer’s disease.
Carol is involved in the development of CrossSense, which won the Dementia Longitude Award, and believes the technology could play an important role in helping people with dementia maintain their independence.
Carol said of her involvement in the development of smart glasses: “When CrossSense invited me to participate in the development of their smart glasses, I was incredibly excited.
“I thought this was a great concept. It has the potential to provide real and trusted support to people like me, replacing the cognitive skills that are gradually lost as dementia progresses. After testing out the glasses and seeing how they develop at each stage, I really realized the difference they make.”
Ensure that people with direct experience are involved in the process
Throughout the awards, the Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), powered by the Alzheimer’s Association, reviewed innovative designs and ideas and provided insight into how technology can support and enable people with dementia to live independently.
Comprised of 11 people living with dementia, carers or former carers, LEAP’s role is to ensure that people with first-hand experience of dementia are included in the development of each stage of the competition. Although not part of the judging process, LEAP insights were shared with the judges for consideration at each stage of the award.
The grand prize of £1 million will support the winners to bring CrossSense to the public in early 2027, with the aim of also using it in local authorities, healthcare providers and NHS services such as memory clinics.
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