For years, experts in the healthcare industry have been searching for ways to detect (and possibly cure) Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. Current estimates indicate that 35.6 million people are living with dementia, projected to jump to 135 million by 2050, according to the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease. At a projected cost of over $600 billion each year, it’s a looming global health and fiscal crisis.
To learn more about how Apache Hadoop and big data may help address this challenge, register for the webinar “Leveraging Big Data in Addressing the Global Alzheimer’s Crisis” Thursday May 29, at 12 pm EST.
Big Data and Health Care
The healthcare industry is turning to big data to improve healthcare on a number of fronts. Some examples include monitoring patient vitals in real-time, accessing genomic data for medical trials, and reducing cardiac re-admittance rates. Read our Healthcare Does Hadoop industry solutions page for specific examples of Apache Hadoop in healthcare, or see Justin Sears’ blog “Modern Healthcare Architectures Built with Hadoop”.
As for many other chronic conditions, big data is now being considered for addressing Alzheimer’s. Because Alzheimer’s is a “multifactorial disease,” multiple factors contribute to it, such as hereditary and environmental. As such, causes and treatments should also be multifactorial, and researchers must analyze data from genomic, environmental, clinical and policy sources.
How Hadoop Can Help Combat Alzheimer’s
Hadoop gives health professionals the ability to ingest and analyze massive amounts of data from many different sources, rapidly and accurately. “This can expose untapped correlations and insights between existing and emerging datasets, leading to greater understanding of the causes of conditions, more precise treatments, and opportunities to improve delivery of care,” says Chris Young, Life Sciences Solutions Partner with Knowledgent. Knowledgent is a Hortonworks Systems Integrator partner with a team of experts that focus on Life Sciences and Healthcare (not to mention financial services and commercial markets).
Learn More
Join Hortonworks, Knowledgent, and the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease (CEO) in a webinar on May 29 at 12 noon EST, where we’ll discuss more on how Hadoop can help support the global effort toward fighting Alzheimer’s. Register here.
The Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease (CEO) is a public-private partnership initiated by leading global corporations and involving non-profit and governmental organizations to identify and advance high-priority activities necessary to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease and improve the quality of life for all affected by the disease.
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