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A review of dementia screening tools based on Mobile application

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Abstract

Dementia is an umbrella term for multiple neurocognitive conditions that affect one’s functional independence making daily activities challenging. Early screening can be critical for successful management of the disease, thus tools implemented within mobile technology to speed up accessibility are becoming more common. This research critically analyses dementia and mild cognitive impartment (MCI) screening tools in terms of their clinical validity & acceptability, efficiency, and performance. We used inclusion and exclusion criteria to search Android and Apple mobile stores, for dementia and MCI screening applications. The comparison of the prevailing apps suggests that no app fulfils the considered evaluation criteria. Hence, the development of dementia screening apps that cover cognitive, memory, and execution domains defined within the neurocognitive disorders for dementia diagnosis of Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), may provide clear clinical benefit as these domains are crucial. Apps such as Cognity are promising as they include new intelligent features by using artificial intelligence to screen individuals.

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Change history

  • 02 June 2020

    Column 3 of Table 1 should be removed and a bibliographic details has been added in the references found in “Medical exam reference” and “Study performance reference” columns in Table 2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Digital Technologies, Manukau Institute of Technology, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand

    Fadi Thabtah & Chanchala Hathurusingha

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, UK

    David Peebles & Jenny Retzler

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  1. Fadi Thabtah
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Correspondence to Fadi Thabtah.

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Thabtah, F., Peebles, D., Retzler, J. et al. A review of dementia screening tools based on Mobile application. Health Technol. 10, 1011–1022 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-020-00426-5

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