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LifeBio Memory™ Life Story App Reaches Next Milestone in Path toward Commercialization

By Audra Kessler-Bennett | info@benrose.org | July 2021

New clinical trial will measure impact on people living with dementia and memory care staff participants

LifeBio Memory™, a groundbreaking reminiscence platform that captures voice recordings to generate life stories and conversation, will begin the next phase of commercialization with a broadscale clinical trial with people living with dementia and their care partners. 

The clinical trial will be conducted in 10 dementia care communities with 240 residents and 60 staff members. Assisted living, memory care, or nursing home sites will participate. The clinical trial will measure the impact of the LifeBio Memory platform on residents’ mood, satisfaction with care, and the quality of the relationships between residents and staff members. It will also measure staff job satisfaction and satisfaction with the LifeBio Memory training and associated tools. The clinical trial will follow a second round of focus groups that are providing detailed feedback on usability, especially from people living with dementia.

The LifeBio Memory iOS and Android app cultivates communication and person-centered care using reminiscence therapy. With more than 6 million people living with Alzheimer’s Disease or another form of dementia today and a growing aging population, LifeBio Memory supports the needs of professional and family caregivers by storing the individuals’ stories and preferences in their own voice using step-by-step questions and photo prompts. Personal photos can be uploaded to enhance the stories shared. Family members will also be able to assist a loved one living with dementia. 

The LifeBio Memory app employs voice recordings, natural language processing, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically build digital or printed Life Story Books, Snapshots, and Action Plans. These are a “quick read” for health care providers and caregivers to know and understand a person’s needs and to help bring comfort and familiarity to each day.

“LifeBio Memory utilizes AI and machine learning protocols to enhance opportunities for social engagement between people living with dementia and their care partners. We are so glad that people will have the chance to share life experiences and feelings--in their own voice,” said Beth Sanders, founder and CEO of LifeBio, Inc. “The goal is to deliver a point-of-care, personalized experience that will be transformational in building relationships and impacting quality of care."

“In the upcoming clinical trial, we hope to replicate those findings as well as demonstrate improvements in individuals’ levels of loneliness and anxiety,” said Silvia Orsulic-Jeras, Research Associate at Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging. “We will be evaluating a variety of outcomes in this project, including staff and resident experiences with the life story interview, how getting to know the life history of the resident impacts the relationship between resident and staff, and how the stories are being used at the point of care. Further, staff participants will be informing the continued product development of LifeBio Memory through their ratings of new training materials, the tablet app, and the voice recording process.” 

About Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging: Founded in 1908, Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging (www.benrose.org) is a nationally recognized Cleveland-based nonprofit whose mission is to support caregivers and empower all people to age well through research, consumer-responsive services and client advocacy. 

About LifeBio Inc.: LifeBio Inc. (www.lifebio.com) is a women-owned company based in Central Ohio. LifeBio is deployed in health plans and senior care providers nationwide to capture life stories for better health. 

LifeBio Memory is supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Federal Award Identification Number R44AG069566. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.