Currently submitted to: JMIR Aging
Date Submitted: Apr 7, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 7, 2026 - Jun 2, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Bridging Informatics Gaps in Digital Lifestyle Medicine for ADRD Caregivers: A Scoping Review of Technological Modalities
ABSTRACT
Background:
Informal caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRD) face significant psychosocial and physiological burdens. While digital health interventions based on lifestyle medicine offer scalable support, the structural integration of these technologies across specific clinical pillars remains unclear.
Objective:
The objective of this scoping review was to map the digital health landscape for ADRD caregivers (2016–2025) to evaluate the distribution of technological modalities across 6 lifestyle medicine pillars and identify critical informatics gaps.
Methods:
A total of 131 eligible US-based studies were identified from PubMed, CINAHL, and Web of Science. A hybrid extraction methodology combined manual full-text contextual validation with quantitative text mining. Structural relationships among clinical pillars, digital modalities, and research methodologies were mapped and quantified using the Jaccard coefficient via KH Coder relational network analysis.
Results:
The field is steadily transitioning toward active, data-driven interventions, supported by a robust cluster of randomized controlled trials (n=41). Network analysis revealed a highly concentrated “Psychosocial Core," heavily reliant on legacy web/online and telehealth platforms to address stress management (n=102) and social connection (n=35). Conversely, a severe "Biobehavioral Gap" exists. Physiological pillars such as nutrition (n=2) remain in an "Informatics Desert" with zero connectivity to advanced modalities (eg, artificial intelligence [AI] and sensing, virtual reality [VR] and games). While total studies addressing physical activity (n=11) and sleep (n=12) remain low, a nascent sensing frontier shows early promise, with emerging AI applications beginning to target objective biometric monitoring.
Conclusions:
While digital psychosocial support for ADRD caregivers has been extensively researched, holistic physiological care remains technologically underserved. To evolve from fragmented support to unified digital therapeutics, next-generation platforms must purposefully integrate AI and wearable sensing to bridge these biobehavioral informatics deserts, creating cohesive, multi-pillar care ecosystems. Clinical Trial: The review protocol was prospectively registered with the Open Science Framework on March 31, 2026 (https://osf.io/ksvp4)
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