91ÖÆƬ³§

Dr. Behnaz Ghoraani, Co-Director of the 91ÖÆƬ³§ Center for SMART Health, Associate Professor in the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceÌý²¹²Ô»åÌý Biomedical Engineering, and I-SENSE Faculty Fellow, continues to lead innovative efforts at the intersection of artificial intelligence, healthcare, and neuroscience. Her latest achievement—a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Florida Department of Health Ed and Ethel Moore Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program—advances a growing body of work focused on early, accessible detection of Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias through clinically relevant, AI-powered tools.

The funded project builds on Dr. Ghoraani’s extensive expertise in biomedical signal processing, wearable systems, and intelligent health technologies. It focuses on developing and validating a smartphone-based system that uses video-captured curve walking analysis to detect early signs of cognitive impairment. This approach moves beyond traditional neuropsychological testing by leveraging subtle changes in gait and balance, early indicators of cognitive decline that are often missed in clinical settings. The system’s core technology, which has already been submitted as a pending U.S. patent application by Dr. Ghoraani and her PhD student, Mahmoud Seifallahi, represents a novel, clinically relevant tool for scalable, non-invasive cognitive screening. With the support of the Florida Department of Health grant, the team will rigorously evaluate its diagnostic performance and feasibility in real-world settings, particularly for home-based and underserved populations.

This project also continues Dr. Ghoraani’s ongoing research collaboration with Dr. James Galvin, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health (CCBH) at the University of Miami. Their partnership connects robust clinical expertise with cutting-edge computational tools, creating a translational research pipeline that aligns perfectly with the Center for SMART Health’s mission to transform healthcare through intelligent, interdisciplinary innovation.

The broader impact of this work is substantial. Alzheimer’s disease affects over 6 million people in the U.S., including more than 580,000 Floridians, one of the highest state populations impacted by the disease. Florida’s rapidly aging population underscores the urgency of developing scalable, accessible tools for early detection and intervention. Yet early diagnosis remains one of the greatest challenges in both clinical and community-based care. By making cognitive assessment more accessible, less invasive, and clinically precise, Dr. Ghoraani’s research opens new opportunities for earlier interventions that could alter disease trajectories and improve quality of life, particularly for older adults in Florida and beyond.