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. 2020;78(1):405-412.
doi: 10.3233/JAD-200880.

Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment in an At-Risk Group of Older Adults: Can a Novel Self-Administered Serious Game-Based Screening Test Improve Diagnostic Accuracy?

Stelios Zygouris  1   2 , Paraskevi Iliadou  3 , Eftychia Lazarou  3 , Dimitrios Giakoumis  4 , Konstantinos Votis  4 , Anastasios Alexiadis  4 , Andreas Triantafyllidis  4 , Sofia Segkouli  4 , Dimitrios Tzovaras  4 , Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos  5 , Sotirios Papagianopoulos  1 , Magda Tsolaki  1   3
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Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment in an At-Risk Group of Older Adults: Can a Novel Self-Administered Serious Game-Based Screening Test Improve Diagnostic Accuracy?

Stelios Zygouris et al. J Alzheimers Dis. 2020.

Abstract

Background: Literature supports the use of serious games and virtual environments to assess cognitive functions and detect cognitive decline. This promising assessment method, however, has not yet been translated into self-administered screening instruments for pre-clinical dementia.

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the performance of a novel self-administered serious game-based test, namely the Virtual Supermarket Test (VST), in detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in a sample of older adults with subjective memory complaints (SMC), in comparison with two well-established screening instruments, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).

Methods: Two groups, one of healthy older adults with SMC (N = 48) and one of MCI patients (N = 47) were recruited from day centers for cognitive disorders and administered the VST, the MoCA, the MMSE, and an extended pencil and paper neuropsychological test battery.

Results: The VST displayed a correct classification rate (CCR) of 81.91% when differentiating between MCI patients and older adults with SMC, while the MoCA displayed of CCR of 72.04% and the MMSE displayed a CCR of 64.89%.

Conclusion: The three instruments assessed in this study displayed significantly different performances in differentiating between healthy older adults with SMC and MCI patients. The VST displayed a good CCR, while the MoCA displayed an average CCR and the MMSE displayed a poor CCR. The VST appears to be a robust tool for detecting MCI in a population of older adults with SMC.

Keywords: Aging; Alzheimer’s disease; computers; dementia; diagnosis; memory disorders; mild cognitive impairment; serious games; subjective cognitive decline; user-computer interface.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ disclosures available online (https://www.j-alz.com/manuscript-disclosures/20-0880r1).

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