Hope for Dementia, a division of “Assessment and diagnostic of Dementia”
Hope for Dementia is a federal non-profit charitable organization (Registration # 815949763 RR001) working to support the cause of safeguarding healthy brains in our aging population. Hope for Dementia is dedicated to supporting the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of dementia and other cognitive disorders.
In 2008 Novatek International, a corporation established in Montreal in 1996, was invited to participate in a multinational project to come up with a new breed of computer assisted cognitive impairment tests. Novatek International, a global leader in providing innovative, comprehensive and process-driven software solutions with extensive knowledge in computerized system and artificial intelligence, was the perfect candidate to collaborate with medical staff in US and Canada to develop a state of the art computerized assessment program called “Cognistat”. This program is able to assess 5 major cognitive functions: language, constructions, memory, calculations and reasoning. Furthermore, it is able to assess neurocognitive functions including levels of consciousness, orientation and attention/digit span.
This program has since become the number one cognitive assessment in English and Spanish speaking North America and a grant by National Research council of Canada allowed for the development of the first computerized cognitive impairment test for French speaking population of North America and the world. This test is the first and only test that accurately detects the Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), using advanced algorithms while taking age, education and several other variables into consideration.
We have been heavily involved in the testing of elderly and veterans coming back from various deployments and during past several years we have noticed that some patients with lower incomes do not have the means to pay for these types of tests. This simple test can prevent a lifetime of burden to the patients’ immediate family and society as a whole. This burden was felt by Parsa Famili and his family when his aunt passed away few years earlier at an elderly care facility diagnosed with Dementia. For this reason, he founded the charity Hope for Dementia in 2016 – a federal not for profit organization comprised of interdisciplinary group of individuals to address the existing demand for immediate and appropriate diagnoses and treatment of this condition. Hope for Dementia will allow for increased opportunities to maximize the efforts and tools necessary for recognizing early signs and symptoms of the disease, which is imperative in the management of the condition and future planning for families and their loved ones. While there are thousands of worthy charities across Canada, there are only very few that focus on the elderly and their neurological health. Hope for Dementia hopes to fill in these gaps that exist within the health care system.