Tracking Cognitive Performance in the General Population and in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment with a Self-Applied Computerized Test (Brain on Track)
Affiliations: [a] Departamento de Ciências da Saúde Pública e Forenses e Educação Médica, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
| [b] EPIUnit - Instituto de Saúde Pública, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
| [c] Serviço de Neurologia, Centro Hospitalar Entre Douro e Vouga, Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal
| [d] Faculdade de Psicologia da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
| [e] Serviço de Neurologia, Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte, Lisboa, Portugal
| [f] Serviço de Neurologia, Unidade Local de Saúde de Matosinhos, Matosinhos, Portugal
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Luis Ruano, MD, MPH, PhD, EPIUnit - Instituto de Saúde Pública, Universidade do Porto, Rua das Taipas 135-139 4050-600, Porto, Portugal. Tel.: +351 222 061 820; Fax: +351 222 061 821; E-mail: lmruano@gmail.com.
Abstract: Repeated measurements could be helpful to identify patients with early cognitive decline. We compare the variation of cognitive performance over one year in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy individuals using the Brain on Track self-applied computerized test (BoT). The study was initiated 30 patients with probable MCI and 377 controls from a population-based cohort, who performed the BoT test from home every three months for one year. The scores were compared using a linear mixed-effects model. All participants increased their scores in the first tests, after 120 days MCI patients started to decline, with a statistically significant higher rate. The area under the curve to detect MCI was 0.94. We identified a significant decline in cognitive performance over one year in patients with MCI using BoT and the test presented a high discriminative ability.
