Aether: Reimagining Cognitive Assessment Pathway to Support Clinicians and Improve Assessment Experience in Dementia Services
Lunchtime Sessions 1
17 November, 2026 1:20 – 2:05 pmElectronic Posters
Sherin Sara Benny
Clinical Excellence Director
CHISQUARE Labs
Ayesha Mohamed Sherief
Clincial Excellence Lead
CHISQUARE Labs
Summary
Dementia services across the UK rely on established memory assessments such as ACE-III and RUDAS to support diagnostic decision-making. However, the delivery and documentation of these assessments often remain largely paper-based, requiring clinicians to manually administer, score, record, and consolidate information from multiple sources. While electronic patient record systems are widely used, they are typically designed as general clinical record platforms rather than specialist tools for dementia assessment workflows.
This can increase administrative burden, introduce variability in how assessments are documented and reviewed, and make it challenging to bring together assessment outcomes, clinical observations, and relevant history in a uniform and consistent manner.
Alongside these workflow challenges, cognitive assessments can be stressful experiences for the individuals undergoing assessment. Through engagement with clinicians, people living with dementia, and carers, we identified concerns that language, cultural familiarity, educational background, and assessment anxiety may sometimes influence engagement with specific assessment items, making interpretation more challenging in diverse populations.
In response, we developed Aether, a digital cognitive assessment support toolkit designed to streamline the administration and documentation of existing validated cognitive assessments without altering their clinical content or interpretation. The platform incorporates automated scoring, structured data capture, and optional supportive prompts intended to help clinicians better understand whether difficulties in responding may be related to cognitive decline or other barriers to engagement.
This presentation will share the rationale behind Aether, insights gathered through stakeholder engagement across dementia services, and lessons learned from co-design activities with people living with dementia, and carers. We will discuss opportunities and challenges in developing more inclusive and efficient cognitive assessment pathways while maintaining the integrity of validated assessment tools.
The work highlights the potential for digital innovation to support clinicians, reduce administrative burden, and contribute to a more accessible assessment experience for people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.