Sheba Medical Center, Japan’s OKI Electric join forces against dementia
Using big data, companies will develop a new approach for very high risk middle-aged individuals
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter

Japanese telecom manufacturer OKI Electric Industry Ltd and the innovation arm of Israel’s Sheba Medical Center have set up a new joint research project that will focus on the prevention of dementia in aging citizens.
The agreement with Sheba’s ARC Innovation Center was signed in Jerusalem earlier this week in the presence of the Japan’s Economic Minister Hiroshige Seko and Israel’s Economic Minister Eli Cohen at the Japan-Israel Business Forum, organized by the economic ministries of Japan and Israel.
Sheba’s ARC Innovation Center will work with OKI to analyze big data medical records to identify ways to prevent risk factors associated with dementia and create various health and exercise regimens for high-risk patients.
The ARC/Sheba-OKI research project will be led by Professor Michal Beeri, director of the Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Center at Sheba Medical Center, ARC said in a statement.
The study will involve a new approach for the prevention of dementia “in very high risk middle aged individuals,” Beeri said. The approach includes an application to closely will monitor dementia-related risk factors that, “if improved over time, we believe will delay the onset of the disease.”
OKI is branching out into the digital healthcare industry at a time when the Japanese population is aging quickly and needs healthcare solutions, said Nathalie Bloch, the director of the ARC Innovation Center.
“The ARC Innovation Center has been specifically designed to address and create a variety of technological solutions for the global healthcare industry through the use of big data and tele-medicine,” she said.