The Use of Digital Technology to Assess Cognitive Function in Tunisian Adults

Abstract

Background: There has been increasing evidence and support for the use of digital technology in the cognitive health field. Despite the growing use of innovative digital technology to assess cognitive function, such technology remains scarce in Arabic countries, particularly in Tunisia. Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of a digitally delivered cognitive assessment battery in differentiating varying degrees of cognitive function in older Tunisian adults. Methods: One hundred fifty-five Tunisian older adults (age: 62.24±7.52 years) were assigned to one of four groups: healthy controls (HC), at-risk (AR), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Participants completed a translated version of the Neurotrack digital cognitive battery. Results: The AD group performed significantly lower on the associative learning (p = 0.01) and associative memory assessments (p = 0.002), than the HC and AR groups. The AD group also performed worse on the inhibition measure (p = 0.008) than the HC, AR, and MCI groups. For recognition memory, the was a significant difference between all four groups (p < 0.0005), with AD having the lowest scores followed by the MCI, AR, and HC groups, respectively. There were no significant differences observed on attention, executive function and processing speed performance between the four groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: The use of digital technology appears to be a viable solution to current cognitive assessment challenges for assessing cognitive function in a Tunisian population. These findings provide further support for the use of digital technology in cognitive assessment, particularly in understudied populations.

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“…The pilot feedback was incorporated into the translated assessments, which were then re-piloted until no additional changes were required based on subsequent feedback. This digital cognitive battery was performed in translated Arabic version as in the recent study conducted by Boujelbane et al ( 54 ).…”

Cognitive decline assessment in speakers of understudied languages

“…To test the accuracy and validity of the translated versions, most articles adopted the forwardbackward translation method. 45,52,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73] Likewise, some studies relied on piloting on an independent sample to evaluate the quality of the translation. 20,46,49,52,68,69,72,74 Last but not least, the main limitations…”

“…45,52,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73] Likewise, some studies relied on piloting on an independent sample to evaluate the quality of the translation. 20,46,49,52,68,69,72,74 Last but not least, the main limitations…”

“…To test the accuracy and validity of the translated versions, most articles adopted the forward‐backward translation method. 45 , 52 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 Likewise, some studies relied on piloting on an independent sample to evaluate the quality of the translation. 20 , 46 , 49 , 52 , 68 , 69 , 72 , 74 Last but not least, the main limitations acknowledged by the original authors concerned the small and insufficient sample sizes, lack of rigorous clinical validation, absence of cultural validation of the tools, potential bias in the results due to several factors related to sample selection and data collection, and disregarding possible confounding comorbidities.…”