Prediction, Monitoring and Personalized Recommendations for Prevention and Relief of Dementia and Frailty

Project Information

COMFORTAGE

Grant agreement ID: 101137301

DOI

10.3030/101137301

EC signature date 7 December 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• Health

Total cost

€ 17 591 490,00

EU contribution

€ 17 591 490,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF PIRAEUS RESEARCH CENTER
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COMFORTAGE (Prediction, Monitoring and Personalized Recommendations for Prevention and Relief of Dementia and Frailty)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

COMFORTage (https://comfortage.eu/) aims to develop integrated healthcare models to foster personalised dementia and frailty preventions and interventions promoting individuals’ physical and mental health. It is a joint effort by medical experts, social scientists and humanists, technical experts, Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), and Living Labs (LLs) to establish a pan-European framework for Community-based, Integrated and People-Centric prevention, monitoring and progression on managing solutions for dementia and frailty. COMFORTage facilitates care services providers to design and deploy personalised, integrated care prevention and intervention measures against dementia and frailty towards significantly improving individuals well-being and quality of life. In addition, it provides the means and tools for the empowerment and enhancement of all stakeholders health and digital literacy to further reduce health inequalities in modern communities and to support healthy and active age living. In this context, the project framework is validated and evaluated in 13 pilot studies involving diverse stakeholders across 8 countries. It is enhanced by a unique combination and integration of four fields of work: (i) Medical/clinical innovations (e.g. leverage and analysis of longitudinal studies, cohorts and biobanks, novel approaches to risk factor analysis and personalised prediction, AI-based medical devices, integrated data sources of age-related clinical evidence, and evidence-based Health Technology Assessment (HTA)), (ii) Cutting edge AI innovations (e.g. eXplainable AI (XAI), behavioural changing applications, serious games, Patient Digital Twins (PDTs), and Virtual Assistive technologies), (iii) DIHs and LLs to facilitate and promote research activities in the health and well-being domain, and (iv) social innovations for promoting innovative views and co-creating new or improved solutions for assistance and improvement of social integration and interaction.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

- Human-centred design requirements embedded into the Digital Healthcare Reference Model (DHRM) and project components
- Specification of ethical and regulatory requirements that govern the execution of the pilots and the implementation of AI-based tools embeding ethics by design
- Development and application of a co-creation methodology for the introduction of person-centred approach resulted in 18 co-developed Blueprint Personas
- Design and implementation of the first version of the Virtualized AI-based Healthcare Platform (VHP)
- Design and open-source implementation of the IDS-Configuration-Manager in alignment with the requirements of the EHDS framework
- Secure, standards-based connector design based on IDSA reference architecture
- Design and implementation of a multi-step mechanism enabling a robust and seamless generation of Holistic Health Records (HHRs)
- A first version of the Blockchain network has been designed, developed and deployed along with API points
- Design and development of a baseline suite of model-agnostic XAI tools
- Design and development of the Integrated Care Model Library (ICML)
- Development of the Clinical Decission Support System (CDSS) emphasising robust visual analytics tools
- Design and development of the PDT by incorporating advanced AI and GenAI approaches going beyond the DoA
- Design and development of virtual assistant applications
- Compatibility and compliance with the GAIA-X framework assessed and implemented across all tools
- The Training and Educational Toolkit (TET) and the Training and Educational Marketplace (TEM) have been developed
- Ten features have been incorporated in TET to support the adoption of training materials and guidelines
- Four gamification features were implemented
- Introduction of a common clinical protocol that incorporates the harmonised procedures for the alignment of the project pilots, a concrete list of selected questionnaires and assessment tools
- Approvals by all local Ethical Committees were obtained and the 13 pilots were setup across 8 countries
- Developed Ethics of AI (ETHAI) conceptual framework, integrating EU Trustworthy AI guidelines, bioethics principles, and care ethics into actionable developer guidelines and technical specifications
- Establishment of strategic synergies with European initiatives, clusters, Joint Actions, and other projects
- Establishment of community-building strategy and formal launching of the CCF
- Initial exploitation activities have begun, focusing on early-stage valorisation of pilot progress
- A structured market analysis using the 5Cs framework, supported by online surveys and interviews
- Publication of scientific outcomes of the project and participation in various events

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

- Delivered EHDS-compliant data connectors and semantic interoperability models
- Introduced FADO dementia-specific ontology
- GenAI models utilised in data harmonisation steps and on semantic interoperability
- Progressed the SotA in blockchain-enabled secure health data exchange, integrating smart contracts and APIs for real-world healthcare use
- Advanced Patient Digital Twin (PDT) design, introducing GenAI approaches for health trajectory simulation beyond the original DoA
- Delivered operational versions of the TET and TEM, incorporating Delphi-study-based categories and validated with HCPs and older adults
- Advanced SotA in serious games for health literacy with localisation (>40 games in multiple languages)
- Trainings Recommender developed and integrated adaptive learning mechanisms connecting AI-driven training to personalised pathways
- Carried out social learning workshops and developed co-created strategies for digital adoption
- Established a common clinical protocol across 13 pilots in 8 countries with harmonised inclusion/exclusion criteria, enabling cross-pilot meta-analytics
- Progressed the SotA in trustworthy AI co-design through developer guidelines, AI inventory tools, and collaborative workshops with technical partners

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