Digital Health, Ageing Innovation
and Inclusion

Digital health technologies, such as wearables, are transforming healthcare by enabling the screening and monitoring of diverse health conditions, advancing clinical trials, and improving access to both research and care. This theme focuses on driving innovation across these core areas—developing personalised, precise, and inclusive digital health technologies to shape the future of health research and delivery.

Our vision is to harness the power of digital health technologies and data science to transform the early detection of disease and improve predictions of disease progression across neurodegenerative, age-related, and multiple long-term conditions.  

Our mission is to make research and clinical care more inclusive and accessible, by developing scalable and acceptable personalised digital health solutions with the people they are meant to serve. Ultimately, we seek to reduce the burden of ill health in older people and support healthier, longer lives. 

We use advanced solutions that combine digital devices (wearable, mobile and embedded and data), data science (machine learning and AI) and real-world solutions (home, community, clinic) - to deliver inclusive, precise, patient centric measures (e.g. gait, turning, activity, sleep, fatigue).

What We Cover in This Theme  

Our three research programmes underpin the work of this theme and are designed to collectively address our aims – building end to end integrated solutions for successful digital health technologies’ implementation. The voice of the patient informs design, implementation and dissemination of our research through our Public Patient Involvement Processes. 

Digital Biomarker Discovery Programme 

We are defining and refining digital biomarkers to enhance early detection and monitoring of neurodegenerative, age-related, and multiple long-term conditions, enhancing research, therapeutic development and clinical management.  We combine state of the art digital tools and AI to build complementary disease models for diagnostics and monitoring utilising unique digital cohort data libraries and enhanced machine learning modelling infrastructure. 

Digital Health Interventions Programme 

We are developing, testing and implementing innovative digital health technologies and clinical decision support to empower people to monitor and manage their health conditions and widen access to specialist clinical care through remote delivery, particularly important for those who may struggle to access clinical services. . We focus on home-based digital tools that tackle mobility loss and falls risk, enhance clinical delivery pathways and deliver personalised care using a combination of digital health technologies and real-world monitoring. 

Digital Health Inclusion Programme 

We are carrying out research to ensure digital health technologies are acceptable and clinically meaningful to the patients who need them and reflect a diverse patient voice that captures under-served communities. Inclusive, acceptable and scalable methods are fundamental to the successful implementation of digital health technologies.  Identifying challenges and solutions to real-world deployment in research and care is central to our programme. This work is underpinned by the flagship NIHR INCLUDE programme, led by Theme Co-Lead, Professor Lynn Rochester.

 

Who We Work With

The theme leaders are: 

Professor Lynn Rochester and Professor Paul Watson (co-leads). 

Dr Silvia Del Din and Prof Camille Caroll (BRC Leadership Track)  

Dr Ríona Mc Ardle (PPIE Lead).  

The work of the theme is underpinned by a diverse multidisciplinary group of clinicians, engineers, data scientists and qualitative researchers. 

This theme links with The Brain and Movement Research Group who deliver much of the research. We collaborate across faculties to deliver high profile and impactful joint research projects. We have active collaborations across the research themes in the BRC. 

We work with a diverse network of communities to actively embed the patient and public voice throughout the entire research cycle. These include: Digital Health Theme Public Patient Advisory Group, the Footprints of Change Patient Public Advisory Group, Tanfield’s Women’s Group, IDEA-Fast Patient Public Group, TORUS Patient Council, and the Greatham Foundation in Hartlepool. 

We carry out our research leveraging our extensive digital data libraries and externally funded centres of expertise, such as the National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA), the National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD). There are  also strong links with the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Clinical Ageing Research Unit (CARU) and CRESTA clinic), Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear Hospital Trust, and University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust.  

We have significant links with charities and funders through our research grants and public engagement efforts, including the NIHR, EU-IMI, EPFIA, Parkinson’s UK, Cure Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer’s Research UK, ESRC, Vivensa Foundation, the Edmond J Safra Foundation and the Michael J Fox Foundation. 

We actively collaborate with industry to validate and develop novel digital solutions. These include Novartis (who co-led Mobilise-D), Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (co-leaders in IDEA-FAST), EMPATICA, McRoberts, Clario, Actigraph. 

Theme Leadership and Contacts