Ironically, Dunedin-based app company Elli Cares is helping to develop a world-first, AI-powered mobile phone app that will assist older adults in monitoring and strengthening their cognitive health.
Elli Cares originally supported seniors living with dementia, by creating a mobile app that gave them gentle reminders when it was time to take medications, go to appointments, carry out tasks such as refilling medications scripts, and informing family members if their loved one missed a reminder or left a safe zone.
It aimed to empower them to live independently, confidently and with greater control over their health and wellbeing.
The New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) recently awarded a $4million Catalyst: Strategic research grant, alongside additional co-funding from Singapore’s National Research Foundation, to develop a new app which can monitor and strengthen the cognitive health of all seniors — not just those with dementia.
Elli Cares founder Angela Edwards said the company would work with Dementia New Zealand, and researchers from the University of Otago, Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland, alongside the Singapore-based National Neuroscience Institute, the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, and Lions Befrienders.
The new app would use speech and game-based tasks to assess memory, decision-making and verbal fluency.
It would also use adaptive AI algorithms that tailored activities to each user’s performance, analyse their performance, and alert families and clinicians with summaries if changes to their performance were detected.
Ms Edwards said studies had shown the brain was a muscle that needed to be used, and if it was not used, “it wastes away”.
She said playing games like Candy Crush, Wordle, Sudoku, and even “rapid-fire shooting games’,’ on mobile phones were good for cognitive health.
“We can actually identify a number of different types of games that can help different parts of your brain.
“We want to find recall games that can help with memory; rapid fire games that can help with response times; and language-based games that can help with vocabulary and communication.”
The new app marks a shift from passive diagnosis, to proactive cognitive resilience.
The project will include a pioneering integrated ethics programme, led by University of Otago Dunedin School of Medicine bioethics lecturer Dr Tania Moerenhout, to ensure the users’ values, autonomy and privacy were prioritised from the earliest design stages.
Dr Moerenhout said older adults may prioritise autonomy and meaningful living, while families would focus on safety.
“AI tools must reflect those nuances.
“Embedding ethics across the design process is key to building trust and ensuring the technology truly supports the lives people want to lead.”
Ms Edwards said the new app would be embedded into the Elli Cares app, because it was already being used in more than 40 countries, making it quicker and easier to deploy and expand the new app.
She was thrilled the next-generation tool would bring world-class AI research
directly into the lives of
all older adults and their families.
“This is about empowering people to live well for longer — and making advanced cognitive support accessible and engaging at scale.”
It would be trialled in both New Zealand and Singapore.
By validating performance across culturally and clinically diverse populations, the research team aimed to ensure broad applicability and global relevance, she said.
The project starts next month and will run until July 2028.
john.lewis@odt.co.nz
