Healthy Aging at Home: How Wearable Devices Can Increase Comfort and Reduce Costs

This series features winners of the Healthy Longevity Global Competition founded by the National Academy of Medicine to extend the human health span by accelerating research, innovation, and entrepreneurism in healthy longevity. The Medical Device Innovation Center at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, funded the project featured in this story.

Innovative Solutions to Advance Healthy Longevity

Taiwan has one of the fastest-aging populations in the world and is on track to become a “super-aged society” by 2025 when more than 20% of its population will be 65 or older. Even now, before they reach that threshold, nearly 1 in 12 older adults in Taiwan have been diagnosed with dementia, impacting their health and well-being. To meet the growing needs of its people, Taiwan is driving innovation in healthy longevity, and their insights could inform care for patients around the world.

Finding innovative ways to treat patients outside of admitting them to emergency rooms and in-patient hospitals is one way experts in Taiwan are working to help the Taiwanese health care system manage this growing population in need of care and lower costs for both the institution and the patient. That’s why Dr. Chen-Hsun Weng and Dr. Yu-Sheng Lin of the Medical Device Innovation Center at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan began to explore a new strategy for helping dementia patients avoid trips to the hospital and promote their general health.

“Patients and caregivers often seek medical attention in response to an episode of memory loss or display of acute symptoms,” said Dr. Chen Hsun Weng. “But there are ways to help patients living with dementia within their own homes instead of requiring difficult and taxing visits to hospitals. The challenge is in how we track and respond to those incidents.”

With that in mind, Weng and Lin began investigating a known compound related to dementia. Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs), otherwise known as glycotoxins, are compounds that are linked to cognitive decline, impaired learning, and declining memory. They hypothesized that by tracking an increase of AGEs in a person’s system, they could predict an oncoming dementia episode and facilitate remote support to a patient through music.

AGEs and Aging

AGEs are formed in a process called glycation when normal biological molecules such as protein or fat are chemically bound to a molecule of glucose. Since glucose is always present in everyone’s blood, this isn’t necessarily a dangerous thing. But when too much of it is in the bloodstream, AGEs can accumulate and lead to harmful effects in cells and the body.

As we age, our bodies naturally experience changes that can increase AGE formation, such as a lower ability to remove waste products from the bloodstream, increased glycation — due to metabolism changes and insulin sensitivity — or common conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure that often coincide with elevated blood sugar levels.

It’s important to note that while AGE accumulation is a natural part of aging, the rate at which it occurs can vary significantly between individuals. Certain lifestyle factors — such as a diet high in processed foods and sugars, a lack of exercise, and smoking — or the presence of other health conditions and one’s genetics can impact AGE-level variance among the population.

Previous research has shown that AGEs may play a role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. AGEs have also been linked to conditions that increase neurodegeneration, including inflammation, which can clog vessels in the brain, damage brain cells, and impair cognitive function.

The Promise of Wearable Devices

Weng and Lin developed a small, flexible, low-cost patch that allows for real-time tracking of AGE levels, which may be able to signal if someone is having an episode of disorientation or memory loss. When the wearable device detects an increase in AGE concentration in a patient’s body fluids — through natural fluorescence emitted by AGE molecules — it automatically connects to a smart speaker in the patient’s proximity and triggers it to play a meaningful song for any specific patient.

Research, including findings from some other Healthy Longevity award winners, has demonstrated how music is experienced across all parts of the brain and can trigger certain memories for the listener or improve attention. In this way, the song played to a patient during a dementia-triggered episode can help reorient them to their surroundings and calm them.

But the benefits don’t end there. Having access to a convenient outpatient method for tracking incoming episodes of memory loss can allow both patients and caregivers to live a more normal life and manage their health outside of a traditional clinical setting. The wearable patch allows physicians and other health care staff unique insight into the condition of their patients at any moment in time, allowing them to monitor patients’ health metrics and cognitive functions, aiding in early detection and ongoing management.

“As dementia patients struggle with memory, having this set of data can help physicians make informed decisions and develop the best treatment plan for any person without relying solely on possibly skewed information from the patient,” said Lin.

While relatively inexpensive and non-invasive, there are challenges associated with wearable devices. As we age, our skin can become less elastic, dryer, or less sensitive. Wearable devices are attached directly to a patient’s skin and require solid adhesion to collect accurate data.

Weng and Lin’s patch is designed with a specific adhesive to address this challenge and has remained effective even when the patient is actively moving and going about their daily lives. They hope to move into the clinical trial phase of their research soon to continue to test the patch’s efficiency.

Throughout their ongoing research and trials, they hope to work toward making the biosensors smaller and more discreet so they can be integrated into wearable devices, improve the accuracy of the sensors, and better understand how personalized music can support the patient.


Learn more about Chen-Hsun Weng, Yu-Sheng Lin, and their project, Dementia-MDIC Patch for Healthy People.


Researchers with project proposals can apply here in January 2025 when the Catalyst Award Application opens. To learn more about the NAM’s Catalyst Awardees, check out these stories. For more information about the Healthy Longevity Global Competition, click here. We appreciate your support in advancing innovative solutions to promote health throughout the human lifespan. Email healthylongevity@nas.edu for questions about the award.

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