Lay summary
Psychomotor agitation and aggression (PAAD) are among the most common and distressing symptoms of dementia. Prediction and early detection of PAAD would enable initiation of therapeutic interventions that could reduce probability of development and decrease severity of PAAD. It would improve health outcomes for people with dementia (PwD) and reduce the burden on healthcare professionals and families of PwD. Currently, no prediction/early detection of PAAD is made, although there is promising evidence on the feasibility of development of a digital tool that could do that.
Our current project is a groundwork for a future pilot international multicentre cohort study grant application to test a computational algorithm for early detection/prediction of PAAD in clinical settings, and aims at:
(i) building a team of New Zealand-based and international collaborators on clinical sites
(ii) developing study methods and documentation (study protocol, informed consent forms, quality assurance documentation) for a future grant application for a pilot cohort study.