Punto Health: The Dementia Care Revolution

Written by: Megan Thomas

Edited by: Caroline Babisz & Natasha Barrow

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Company: Punto Health

Location: London

Founded: 2023

Founders: Anna Muñoz Farré and Jack Eckersley

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Introduction to Dementia Care

A dementia diagnosis can leave people feeling adrift and alone. They’re often left with mounds of questions but very limited access to personalised information or specialists¹. We had the opportunity to speak to Anna Muñoz Farré, founder and CEO of Punto Health, about how they are starting a dementia care revolution.

Social care in the UK has faced decades of under-funding resulting in a system that is fragmented and difficult to access, not to mention highly expensive^1,2,3. An analysis by Alzheimer's Society revealed that people with dementia (or their carers) can interact with up to 20 different NHS or social care professionals before gaining access to the support they require⁴. Even then, the care they receive may not be personalised to their individual needs⁵.

The weight of dementia care is often carried by those closest to the patient and carers themselves are at high risk of developing depression and anxiety disorders as a result^6,7. These unpaid carers are seldom recognised for the enormous amounts of work they do for their loved ones, despite providing care that is estimated to have an economic value of £12.2bn each year in the UK⁵. Due to the ageing population of the UK, the economic impact of dementia is also predicted to soar from the current £42bn per year to £90bn by 2040⁶. This illustrates an unsustainable system that is not fit for the future.

“You realise it's not just the patient, it's everyone else's disease too.”

After seeing her grandfather live with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, Anna knew that something had to be done to better support patients and carers like her grandmother. At Punto, they believe the time has come to redefine cognitive care models and empower patients so that they can live independently for longer. According to CEO Anna: “the only way to do this at scale and so it’s accessible to everyone is by using digital solutions''. This is what led Anna to develop the Punto Health Platform. A Swiss Army Knife for dementia care, Punto is an AI-based digital platform designed for the holistic management of mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

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How Does Punto Health Work?

There are two sides to the platform, PuntoCare designed for patients and carers, and PuntoClinic aimed at healthcare professionals.

From the patient and carer side, Punto provides personalised post-diagnostic support through validated resources, education and advice. Users can interact with an AI-based chatbot ‘companion’, which has its output restricted so it can only reply with clinically validated responses. All validation and testing is being carried out in collaboration with their clinical partners Ace Alzheimer Center in Barcelona, one of the largest dementia care centres in Europe⁸. Patients can ask their AI companion any questions they may have about their condition or its management. Carers can also talk to the companion about how to look after their own needs and support themselves whilst taking care of their loved one.

In addition to this, the platform generates personalised care plans for each patient, containing tailored advice on practical changes they can make to their lifestyle to slow down disease progression. This includes things like cognitive stimulation and physical exercises, nutrition tips, improved medication management and maintaining healthy habits. These are all factors that have been shown to slow progression in the early stages of mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia⁹.

From the healthcare provider side, the information logged by patients can be harnessed to facilitate more sophisticated and personalised care, as well as streamline clinical trial patient selection and pre-screening.

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This image shows what the app interface will look like to clinicians (left) and patients or their carers (right).

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What Else Is Punto Doing?

In partnership with Ace Alzheimer Center, Punto Health is developing a cutting-edge, AI-based digital biomarker which can detect changes in cognitive status based on a patient’s speech. This will be in the format of a test taken from home every three months. The digital biomarker will give clinicians a more detailed look into the progression of someone's disease over time and provide granularity on the different aspects of a patient’s cognitive status — such as memory, executive function, attention, linguistics and visuospatial function. Co-designing the Punto Health platform with Ace has given them an invaluable, real-world insight into exactly what is needed at all stages of the patient pathway, and how their platform can be best poised to help.

The array of tools in Punto’s arsenal will help to unify the fragmented post-diagnosis care that patients experience. It will also help to improve the management of dementia for patients, carers and healthcare providers.

“We're not just a consumer product for the carers and patients, we are a platform to help with all of the care coordination of these patients.”

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How Much Funding Has Punto Secured?

Punto have just closed a £550,000 pre-seed investment round which will aid them in their mission to transform dementia care. This is an outstanding achievement for Punto’s CEO Anna, an engineer and AI scientist who raised the funds. A report published by the Alan Turing Institute highlighted the glaring disparity in the amount of investment going towards female-led startups in the AI software sector, totalling just 0.7% of all capital invested in the sector since 2010^10,11.

“When you look at the numbers, it's really sad when you look at the amount of money that goes to female founders”.

This is an echo of the AI industry itself, with 80% of AI and data science professionals in the UK being male^11,12. At Punto, they are keen to have a workforce that is more representative of the population as a whole. “Now that I run this company, I have the power to get female talent, and make sure that they stay and are supported. The whole point is to show young women and girls that we’re here and you can do it too.”

This is just the start of a very exciting journey for Punto Health. They are currently looking for clinical partners to start clinical validation of their platform in the UK. If you have any questions regarding this, please contact anna@puntohealth.com.

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