Arioli Melissa, Rini James, Anguera-Singla Roger, Gazzaley Adam, Wais Peter E
Department of Neurology, Neuroscape and Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
Ochsner Health, New Orleans, LA, United States.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Jul 1;14:907496. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.907496. eCollection 2022.
Standardized neuropsychological assessments of older adults are important for both clinical diagnosis and biobehavioral research. Over decades, in-person testing has been the basis for population normative values that rank cognitive performance by demographic status. Most recently, digital tools have enabled remote data collection for cognitive measures, which offers the significant promise to extend the basis for normative values to be more inclusive of a larger cross section of the older population. We developed a Remote Characterization Module (RCM), using a speech-to-text interface, as a novel digital tool to administer an at-home, 25-min cognitive screener that mimics eight standardized neuropsychological measures. Forty cognitively healthy participants were recruited from a longitudinal aging research cohort, and they performed the same measures of memory, attention, verbal fluency and set-shifting in both in-clinic paper-and-pencil (PAP) and at-home RCM versions. The results showed small differences, if any, for how participants performed on in-person and remote versions in five of eight tasks. Critically, robust correlations between their PAP and RCM scores across participants support the finding that remote, digital testing can provide a reliable assessment tool for rapid and remote screening of healthy older adults' cognitive performance in several key domains. The implications for digital cognitive screeners are discussed.
对老年人进行标准化的神经心理学评估对临床诊断和生物行为研究都很重要。几十年来，面对面测试一直是根据人口统计学状况对认知表现进行排名的人群常模值的基础。最近，数字工具使认知测量的远程数据收集成为可能，这为将常模值的基础扩展到更广泛地纳入老年人群体的更大横截面提供了重大希望。我们开发了一个远程表征模块（RCM），它使用语音转文本界面，作为一种新颖的数字工具，用于在家中进行一个25分钟的认知筛查，该筛查模仿了八项标准化神经心理学测量。从一个纵向衰老研究队列中招募了40名认知健康的参与者，他们在诊所纸笔（PAP）版本和在家中的RCM版本中都进行了相同的记忆、注意力、语言流畅性和任务转换测量。结果显示，在八项任务中的五项任务中，参与者在面对面版本和远程版本上的表现差异很小（如果有差异的话）。至关重要的是，参与者的PAP和RCM分数之间存在很强的相关性，这支持了以下发现：远程数字测试可以为快速远程筛查健康老年人在几个关键领域的认知表现提供可靠的评估工具。本文讨论了数字认知筛查工具的意义。
