Articles
FALL 2015 49W e are generally accustomed to assessment of our physical health (for example, exams that include measuring blood pressure, cholesterol, and others), but perhaps less familiar with the concept of assessing cognitive health, that is, determining the condition of the wide variety of our cognitive capabilities. Neurocognitive testing is the overall term for the efforts to assess the performance of our mental capabilities, including for example, memory, attention, problem solving, language and verbal fluency, cognitive processing speed, and others. Cognitive assessment is important in a variety of medical circumstances, including head injury (for example, concussions occurring during sports or on the battlefield), stroke, the onset of declining cognitive capacity resulting from dementia (for example, Alzheimer's), and others. Routine cognitive assessment has recently been added to Medicare's annual wellness visits.We describe a new means of doing neurocognitive testing, enabled through the use of an off-the-shelf digitizing ballpoint pen from Anoto, Inc., combined with novel software we have created. The new approach provides a significant increase in precision, improves efficiency, sharply reduces test analysis time, and permits administration and analysis of the test by medical office staff (rather than requiring time from clinicians). In addition, where previous approaches to test analysis involve criteria phrased in qualitative terms, leaving