Digital health company Neurotrack reported on Wednesday the receipt of a fast-track grant, valued at up to USD3.3m, to assess and evaluate its Memory Health Program in Alzheimer's and other related dementias, from the National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Seed Fund.

Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, affects more than 50m people around the world today, a number that's expected to double every 20 years, reaching more than 130m by 2050. It's a complex disease that, for many, begins in mid-life and manifests in later years, and, at present, has no cure.

The company's Memory Health Program is an app-based, personalised digital therapy that supports behavioural change across multiple risk factors, physical activity, nutrition, vascular health and cognitive training, through on-demand health as well as coaching that can be accessed anywhere.

This funding will enable the company to fully evaluate its delivery, use, and impact on improving cognitive health among those at-risk over a two-year period. It will collaborate with Dr Michelle Gray, who has significant experience running multi-year intervention studies that target population groups age 40+, at the University of Arkansas Exercise Science Research Center (ESRC).

Results from a preliminary study of Neurotrack's digital therapeutic showed promise of the intervention in engaging at-risk individuals in multi-domain interventions over 12 months with observable improvements in cognition.