New digital cognitive test for Alzheimer’s disease

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a digital cognitive test for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. The diagnostic is intended for use in primary care.

Using a tablet computer, patients take a memory test in which they are asked to recall and recognise ten words; measure their cognitive processing speed and attention; and assess their orientation with simple online questions, such as saying what day and year it is.

The test includes variables that could not easily be measured in the past using pen-and-paper tests, such as how long it takes the patient to search for words among a longer list of words or how quickly they tap the screen.

‘This digital test, which patients perform on their own with minimal involvement from healthcare personnel, improves the primary care physician’s ability to determine who should be further examined by blood tests for Alzheimer’s pathology early in the investigation phase,’ says Professor Oskar Hansson, professor of neurology at Lund University.

Seeking medical care for cognitive impairment is not necessarily the result of Alzheimer’s disease – it can for example be caused by depression, fatigue or other dementias.

‘Primary care does not have the resources, time or specialist knowledge to investigate possible Alzheimer’s disease in the same way as specialised memory clinics. And this is where a digital cognitive test can make the biggest difference,’ says Prof Hansson.

At the moment, blood tests are only available in specialised memory clinics in hospitals. In the long term, they will also be available in primary care, but doing blood tests on all patients presenting with cognitive problems is not the intention.

‘Our new digital test provides a first objective picture – at an earlier stage and with greater precision – of which patients have cognitive impairment indicative of Alzheimer’s disease,’ says Pontus Tideman, doctoral student at Lund University and a psychologist at the Memory Clinic, Skåne University Hospital.

‘This indicates who should proceed with the blood test that measures the level of phosphorylated tau and is able to detect Alzheimer’s pathology in the brain with high accuracy.’

As new disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s disease are now becoming available, early and accurate diagnosis are becoming increasingly important, as not everyone responds to the new drugs. As populations age and dementia becomes more common, a simple self-administered test could prove highly useful.