Every 3 seconds, someone in the world develops dementia. For the 55 million people living with Alzheimer's today, diagnosis almost always comes too late. MRI only works after symptoms appear and costs thousands per session. But researchers have known since the early 2000s that the eyes tell the story years earlier: saccadic eye movement abnormalities appear up to 15 years before the first cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Saccade is a hardware attachment for the Apple Vision Pro that turns it into an Alzheimer's screening device. It mounts directly to the light seal, housing two NIR cameras and dual custom PCBs for synchronized IR illumination and camera output. The chassis mirrors the Vision Pro's Light Seal form factor, with biocompatible cushions and fabric and a thermal management system built for repeated clinical use.

The patient puts it on, completes a short VR-based diagnostic task, and Saccade's computer vision pipeline and ML model classify their eye movements against clinical Alzheimer's baselines. We are pursuing IRB approvals for pilot studies at UC Santa Barbara, Cottage Health, and Sharp Mary Birch Hospital San Diego, benchmarking against MRI at a fraction of the cost. Winner of the People's Choice Award and $7,500 from the UCSB New Venture Competition. For the families waiting on a diagnosis, Saccade means years they didn't have before.

* A saccade is the rapid, involuntary movement your eyes make as they jump between points of focus. It is one of the earliest measurable signs of neurological disease, and the reason we named this company what we did.