Validity of a Novel Touch Screen Tablet-Based Assessment for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Probable AD in Older Adults

Abstract

This study aimed to develop a psychometrically valid touch screen tablet-based cognitive test battery to identify early cognitive impairment due to dementia in older adults. The battery includes eight tests with 13 subscores, evaluating visual attention, auditory attention, information processing speed, visual memory, motor control, and visuospatial perception. Among the participants, 43 had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 36 with probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD); 41 had no cognitive impairment. The average time to administer the tablet-based tests was 10 minutes. Significant correlations with the Mini-Mental State Examination were found in 9 out of 13 subscores. Patients with probable AD scored significantly lower than controls in 8 out of 13 subscores, whereas those with MCI scored significantly lower in 4 out of 13 subscores. Confirmatory factor analysis using Promax rotation showed that four factors caused lower subscores in the MCI group compared with the controls: information processing speed, memory, visuospatial perception, and motor control. All four factors significantly discriminated the controls from the MCI and probable AD groups, and in the expected direction. The touch screen tablet-based cognitive test battery is psychometrically valid for evaluating cognition in older adults.

Mobile-Health Applications for the Efficient Delivery of Health Care Facility to People with Dementia (PwD) and Support to Their Carers: A Survey

“…Four (04) studies [45, 47, 48, 50] designed and developed cognitive screening of dementia apps. MOBI-COG app [45] allowed people to take dementia screening tests at home by incorporating convenient, automated, and easy measures to administer features.…”

“…The user is asked to perform three tasks, i.e., remembering words, clock drawing, and recalling words and at the end displays an automated assessment of these tasks. The experimental setup involved normal people while the other three included articles [47, 48, 50] included dementia people to validate the effectiveness of mobile app as a screening application. Zorluoglu et al [47] proposed a mobile cognitive screening (MCS) app.…”

“…The scores of the same participants revealed the correlation between MCS and MoCA score. Another study [48] also used touchscreen tablet-based mHealth app to identify early cognitive impairment in older adults. This study concluded that the cognitive battery test is a cost-effective solution for the screening of early MCI and AD among dementia people.…”

Quality of life in people with dementia living in nursing homes: validation of an eight-item version of the QUALIDEM for intensive longitudinal assessment

“…Furthermore, more touchscreen interventions should be conducted to compare those with our method and evaluate QoL including variables such as the QUALIDEM subscales. Moreover, studies using technology-based assessment tools outline the advantages such as accuracy, efficiency, acceptability, and feasibility [18][19][20][21].…”

“…Previous studies suggest the feasible use of technology-based and more specifically touchscreen-based assessments for elderly people, PwD, and other people with neurodegenerative disorders [15][16][17]. Other studies investigated the use of smartphones to measure the momentary QoL in PwD and people with cognitive impairment and identified a good acceptability, feasibility, and accuracy as well [18][19][20][21]. However, further research is needed that examines the relation of momentary QoL with comprehensively assessed QoL in PwD.…”