The Emerging Sensory Health Landscape
Sensory Health Is Becoming Brain Health Infrastructure
V1.1 · September 2026 · SuperSenses Corporation
Global policy, dementia prevention, brain-capital economics and longevity medicine are all moving upstream toward prevention, function and early detection. Sensory capacity appears throughout that movement. Objective, integrated, longitudinal measurement of all five senses does not yet exist as deployable infrastructure.
Global Recognition
The world is moving upstream toward brain health, functional capacity and prevention. ◆ marks frameworks that name sensory capacity explicitly.- WHO Intrinsic Capacity
- WHO ICOPE
- WHA78.7 · 2025
- ARPA-H IC Consensus to FDA · 2026
- Lancet Commission on Dementia · 2024
- WHO World Reports on Hearing & Vision
- SENSE Network · NIA
- UN Decade of Healthy Ageing
- WHO Brain Health Position Paper
- World Economic Forum
- McKinsey Health Institute
- Brain Economy Action Forum
- Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative · Brain House
- NIH · NIA · NIDCD · NEI
- AARP
Sensory Health Is Embedded Everywhere
The same five inputs run underneath every one of these agendas.Healthy Ageing
- WHO Intrinsic Capacity sensory is 1 of 5 domains
- WHO ICOPE assessment pathway, 2nd ed. 2025
- UN Decade of Healthy Ageing
- ARPA-H PROSPR IC consensus to FDA, 2026
- WHA78.7 sensory impairment & dementia
Dementia Prevention
- Lancet Commission 2024 hearing 7%, vision 2% PAF
- World-Wide FINGERS 73 countries, Jan 2026
- U.S. POINTER results 2025
- ACHIEVE RCT hearing, 2023
- Alzheimer's Disease International
Brain Health & Brain Capital
- WEF The Human Advantage, Jan 2026
- Brain Economy Action Forum
- Global Brain Capital Index
- DAC Brain House
- McCance Brain Care Score
Longevity & Preventive Clinics
- Fountain Life smell + retina + cognition
- Apollo Health / ReCODE
- PALM Health
- Pacific Brain Health Center
- AARP Staying Sharp
Sensory Science
- SENSE Network all six modalities, ageing
- Monell · NIDCD Smell & Taste Center
- JHU Cochlear Center · NEI
- STANA · Fifth Sense · AbScent
- Tales, Kremláček & Richards 2025
- NSHAP · BLSA · Beaver Dam
Functional Independence
- Falls, mobility and navigation
- Nutrition, appetite, oral frailty
- Social connection and isolation
- Communication and driving
- Medication safety and daily activity
Running underneath all six VisionHearingSmellTasteTouch
How It Is Actually Measured Today
Fragmented by sense, by specialty and by setting. Frequently not measured at all.Healthy Ageing
Dementia Prevention
Brain Health & Brain Capital
Longevity & Preventive Clinics
Sensory Science
Functional Independence
Sensory function remains fragmented, inconsistently measured, and rarely tracked as one system over time.
- FINGER excluded people with "severe loss of vision, hearing or communicative ability" — sensory impairment was a barrier to entry, not a factor to measure
- U.S. POINTER assesses no hearing, vision, smell, taste or touch, and unlike FINGER does not mention them in eligibility at all
- WHO ICOPE covers vision and hearing; smell, taste and touch are not assessed domains
- Brain Care Score 12 factors — four physical, five lifestyle, three social-emotional — none sensory
- AARP Staying Sharp six pillars, none sensory, though AARP addresses hearing separately through its Global Council
- WEF 2026 defines brain health and brain capital without reference to sensory function
The Missing Measurement Layer
Five senses.
One baseline.
Measured over time.
A longitudinal sensory-health platform built to make the brain's primary inputs visible, comparable and actionable.
Measure›Interpret›Intervene›Remeasure
- One Assessment
- All five senses, one protocol
- Objective
- Instrumented, not self-report alone
- Personal Baseline
- Compared against yourself
- Age-Referenced
- Interpreted against expectation
- Longitudinal
- Repeated on a fixed cadence
- Composite Score
- One trend line, five inputs
- Referral Pathway
- Connected to domain follow-up
- Deployable
- Clinic, community, at home
SuperSenses is building the standardized, longitudinal measurement layer that the sensory-health and brain-health landscape does not yet have. Research cohorts such as NSHAP and Beaver Dam have measured several senses objectively over time; none of it exists as infrastructure a clinic can run. See the science, the clinic program and the senior living program.
Sources
- Livingston G, et al. Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. The Lancet. 2024. thelancet.com
- Ngandu T, et al. Recruitment and baseline characteristics of participants in the FINGER trial. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014;11(9):9345–9360. mdpi.com
- Ngandu T, et al. A 2 year multidomain intervention to prevent cognitive decline (FINGER). The Lancet. 2015;385:2255–2263.
- Baker LD, et al. Study design and methods: U.S. POINTER. Alzheimer's & Dementia. 2024;20(2):769–782. doi:10.1002/alz.13365
- U.S. POINTER trial registration. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03688126. clinicaltrials.gov
- WHO. Integrated care for older people (ICOPE): guidance for person-centred assessment and pathways in primary care, 2nd edition. 2025. who.int
- Singh SD, et al. The predictive validity of a Brain Care Score for dementia and stroke. Frontiers in Neurology. 2023;14:1291020. frontiersin.org
- AARP Staying Sharp. The Six Pillars of Brain Health. aarp.org
- AARP Global Council on Brain Health. Hearing Matters for Brain Health. 2024. aarp.org
- World Economic Forum with McKinsey Health Institute. The Human Advantage: Stronger Brains in the Age of AI. January 2026. weforum.org
- FINGERS Brain Health Institute. World-Wide FINGERS Network. fbhi.se
- Lin FR, et al. Hearing intervention versus health education control to reduce cognitive decline (ACHIEVE). The Lancet. 2023;402:786–797.
Cite this as: SuperSenses Corporation. The SENSEscape: Sensory Health Is Becoming Brain Health Infrastructure, v1.1, September 2026. https://super-senses.com/pages/sensory-health-landscape
