Computerized cognitive assessment system for dementia screening application

Abstract

The occurrence of dementia is increasing in an aging, even aged society. According to the previous research reports, early diagnosis and treatment of dementia may slow down the progression of illness and reduce the cost of care-giving. There are several assessment measures currently applied in clinics, such as Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), etc. However, their common feature is the need of instructors to guide one patient at a time. In addition, most of the tests are based on western culture. In Taiwan area, the hospital visiting rate of dementia patients is very low. This points out the problem that the clinical assessments are not often used for screening. In this study, a game based computerized measure for assisting the assessment of the suspected subjects is developed and its efficacy is discussed. The proposed system is developed and embedded in an interactive game based on Taiwanese culture theme. This system can work on Android and Windows platform, and it includes obtaining the user background and testing different cognitive domains, including attention, language, memory, visuospatial abilities, executive function and orientation.