Startup’s Headset to Treat Alzheimer’s Will Undergo Wide Trial With Patients

Cognito Therapeutics Inc. became the latest company to secure a large-scale trial to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Unlike most other remedies in development today, this one involves a device rather than medicine.

The late-stage trial, which the company plans to announce Thursday at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference in San Francisco, will enroll around 500 US participants. They will wear a headset for an hour a day for a year. The headset will deliver light and sound at a frequency that, according to prior Cognito studies including one in the journal Neurology, delivers improved cognitive ability among people with Alzheimer’s.