Building solutions for the “forgotten pandemic” — Dementia (pt.1)
We talk to Dr Bushra Siddiqi to learn about her vision for Cogni.Dx and why she considers Dementia the “forgotten pandemic”
Dr Bushra Siddiqi is a founder, computer scientist, academic, and mother who is currently building Cogni.Dx — a cognitive screening tool that fast-tracks preliminary dementia diagnosis. I got connected to Bushra through Zinc’s Program Director, Julia Ross, who met the Cogni.Dx team through their Mission 3 program.
This past week, the team at Aerospace Xelerated has been celebrating Ada Lovelace through spotlighting the often-overlooked work women in STEM are doing. We explored the legacy of Ada Lovelace and why it’s important to improve the representation of women in STEM, head here. We also interviewed the founders of OURZ, the Executive Director of the US Coalition on Sustainability, and the co-founder & CEO of TUBR. They’ve all been extremely interesting conversations touching on the challenges women face in different cultures and industries, whilst providing hope and direction on how we can improve as a community. I highly recommend giving them a read!
It was so great sitting down with Bushra to hear why she’s building Cogni.Dx, and her journey in STEM as a founder, academic, and also a woman of minority ethnicity.
Hey Bushra! It’s so great to have you with us for Ada Lovelace week. I’d love to learn more about what you’re building with Cogni.DX?
Cogni.Dx is a London-based start-up that provides early-stage diagnostic and long-term care solutions for neurological conditions. The first condition we are tackling is Dementia. Cogni.Dx’s primary innovation is to uniquely digitise and accelerate the manual procedure of history-taking by developing a digital screening application consisting of medical/cognitive and behavioural history questions as well as cognitive assessments, that, based on the answers given, will instantly deduce the probable dementia diagnosis at the comfort of the patient’s home and send the results immediately to the GP. This makes CogniDx the first hybrid tool to conduct a detailed history-taking and cognitive assessment procedure at home without the presence of a physician. This significantly reduces the delays in diagnosis at the primary care level and cuts down inappropriate referrals to memory clinics.
“Many parts of the world associate a stigma around dementia and hence caregivers, patients and professionals fail to diagnose it early, correlating it with old age.”
Digitising medical screening seems like a long-overdue solution that’s urgently needed — especially since the pandemic has prevented many from accessing healthcare. How did the idea for Cogni.DX first come about and why did you choose to start with dementia?
Dementia has been a crucial part of my life from my aunts suffering and passing away from Dementia to now my mother being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, many parts of the world associate a stigma around dementia and hence caregivers, patients and professionals fail to diagnose it early, correlating it with old age. This can lead to progression in disease and an unsurmountable pressure not only on the healthcare services but also on the caregiver. That is why Cogni.Dx was born — to facilitate the early diagnosis at home, provide a holistic plan to manage the disease in every phase of the patient’s journey (including the MCI (pre-dementia) stage), and make it available in a highly predictable, low-cost approach for the general masses.
You call Dementia the “forgotten pandemic” — that’s super interesting. Why?
Dementia is one of the biggest global health challenges of the 21st century. Every 3 seconds, an additional life is irreversibly changed by a Dementia diagnosis. Currently, there are more than 50 million people worldwide living with Dementia; forecasted to increase nearly three times, to 152 million, by 2050. Dementia has taken over all the continents of the world, with the majority of sufferers in Asia. It is undoubtedly a massive global pandemic, albeit, in the wake of COVID-19, a forgotten pandemic. More than a thousand years after the first case was diagnosed, we still don’t have a definitive treatment and cure for Dementia! This is not only startling but also worrying as the global population ages, the world is incrementally going to face a global dementia crisis as more people will develop dementia now than ever before. Let’s not forget this pandemic.
How do you see Cogni.Dx will improve the lives of people with dementia?
Our vision at Cogni.Dx is to democratise access to early dementia diagnosis and care. The problem we are trying to solve is two-faced. Adults with cognitive decline, who are not sure if it is related to dementia or not, frequently fail to receive a timely, accurate diagnosis of their condition at the primary care level causing severe anxiety and delays. GPs on the other hand, often have a lack of skills and time to offer a proper diagnosis causing misdiagnosed referrals to the memory clinics. This entire arduous journey can impede the early detection of the disease, delay its treatment, and hinder its management. At Cogni.Dx we are trying to provide early access to dementia treatment, enhance the patient’s experience with their GP, and help GPs regain their confidence in diagnosing dementia. Although there is no cure yet for Dementia, the benefits of an early diagnosis and detection are profound for patients, carers, and the healthcare systems by making lifestyle changes that can help delay the onset of the disease, gaining access to earlier treatments, and maximizing the quality of life for both the patient and their caregiver.
Thank you to Bushra for taking the time to speak to us about Cogni.Dx!
In part 2, we continue our conversation with Bushra to cover her journey into STEM and her top pieces of advice to women who are struggling to grow their careers in STEM.
We hope you can join us in the push towards better representation of women in STEM — use #AdaLovelace and #WomenInTech on socials to shout your support and celebrate the women you respect. You can follow the content we’ve published this week via the #AdaLovelace tag here on Medium.
A short note on Diversity & Inclusion
Throughout this week, the conversation has largely focussed on pushing towards greater gender equality. Diversity and inclusion is equally important in the strive towards parity, yet often less focussed on. Women of minority ethnicity can still feel invisible whilst their white counterparts are celebrated and their contributions are overlooked. It’s a difficult balance. As Joanna Hall describes in her interview with Heather,
Until there is some sort of enough gender parity and an appropriate ratio, there are dynamics at play that are always going to be a disadvantage for certain individuals. We need to be focused and striving for parity and we get to the point where our personalities and skillset is what is important. Not, because I’m a female or some other ‘diversity metric’. Until basic ratios are met, no matter what, it’s going to be polarising.
A lot more work needs to be done to advance the STEM industry so it is diverse in both gender and ethnicity.
Aerospace Xelerated is a 3-month funded programme for exceptional autonomy and AI startups to accelerate the growth of the aerospace industry. Learn more about our work in our FAQ or book an Office Hours call to chat with the programme team.
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