Assistive Technology for Persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias and Their Caregivers (R41/R42 - Clinical Trials Optional) | PAR 18 587

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 18 587

This funding opportunity, titled "Assistive Technology for Persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias and Their Caregivers (R41/R42 - Clinical Trials Optional)" (PAR-18-587), is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program aimed at supporting small businesses that want to research and develop practical assistive technologies for people living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), along with the caregivers or care partners who support them. The overall goal is to improve health and well-being, reduce illness and disability, and strengthen quality of life through technology that can be realistically used in everyday settings, not just in research environments.

The FOA emphasizes solutions that directly address common and high-impact challenges faced by individuals with ADRD and their caregivers. Priority areas include technologies that provide psychosocial support, such as tools that help improve mood, reduce loneliness, and build or maintain social connection and communication. Another key interest is stress reduction, including approaches like biofeedback or other technology-enabled behavioral therapies that can help caregivers and/or people with ADRD manage anxiety, agitation, or chronic stress. The announcement also calls out care management and support for activities of daily living, which can include technologies that help with routines, reminders, task guidance, safety, coordination of care, or similar day-to-day supports that reduce burden and help people function more independently for longer.

A major theme of the opportunity is that strong projects will be multidisciplinary. NIH is explicitly encouraging collaborations that bring together clinical expertise in aging and dementia (for example, geriatricians with dementia experience, neurologists, and psychologists) with technical and product-focused expertise (such as computer scientists and mechanical, electrical, and software engineers). In practice, this means applicants should show that they understand the clinical realities of ADRD and caregiving and can translate that understanding into a tool that is usable, acceptable, and effective for real users, including individuals with cognitive impairment who may have difficulty learning new workflows or interacting with complex interfaces.

Applications are expected to demonstrate the potential for broad population impact. The FOA lays out four qualities the proposed assistive technology should clearly aim to meet: it should be innovative (meaning it brings a genuinely new approach or meaningful improvement over what is currently available), it should be efficacious and effective (supported by evidence or a strong plan to generate evidence, with clinical trials allowed but not required), it should be scalable (able to be deployed widely without unreasonable cost or specialized infrastructure), and it should be low-cost (affordable enough to reach the people who need it, recognizing the financial constraints many families and care systems face). This combination signals that NIH is looking not only for novel prototypes, but for solutions that can realistically be adopted at scale and deliver measurable benefit.

From an administrative standpoint, the mechanism is an SBIR grant using the R41/R42 pathway, with clinical trials listed as optional. The eligible applicant pool is small businesses, consistent with SBIR rules. Foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible. However, foreign components, as defined under NIH Grants Policy, may be allowed in some cases, meaning a U.S. small business might be able to include certain limited foreign activities if NIH policy permits and if well-justified, but the applicant organization itself must be U.S.-based and eligible under SBIR requirements. The opportunity falls under the NIH health funding activity category and is associated with CFDA number 93.866. The original closing date listed for this announcement was January 8, 2020, and the record indicates it was created on January 25, 2018.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Assistive Technology for Persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias and Their Caregivers (R41/R42 - Clinical Trials Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-01-25.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2020-01-08. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Small businesses.

Apply for PAR 18 587

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