With the system of healthcare in the United States and the rapid aging of the baby boomer generation, there will be an increasing difficulty for medical professionals to meet the healthcare demands of a disproportionate population of elderly citizens who may experience mild cognitive impairment. New methodologies that utilize technology are necessary in order to address and meet these demands. An advantage that the advent of online technologies presents is the ability for individuals to screen themselves for disorders, especially those that involve cognitive impairments. The following list is a set of potential benefits that people could reap from using online tools to screen for cognitive impairment.

    The Cognitive Test for Everyone

With the pervasiveness of memory problems in conditions such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and others, it is clear that there needs to be innovation in the field of neuropsychology to meet the healthcare demands that these conditions present. Often these types of problems arise in a subtle fashion that goes undiagnosed and untreated. In order to begin to address these issues, we have developed MemTrax—an online memory test that is designed to measure and track memory performance with a fun simple cognitive test.

It is our assertion that MemTrax has applications as a tool to assist in preventing cognitive decline in aging populations, and to help identify AD and other cognitive impairments especially with the prospect of early identification for treatment.

Neuropsychological and cognitive assessments are both methods of understanding the capacity at which an individual is mentally performing. People that are familiar with cognitive and neuropsychological assessments are likely to have experiences with the Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE). For those who have not had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with it, the MMSE is an assessment of the memory and cognitive performance in an individual.

    Dementia Test Online

The MMSE is conducted by an interviewer who asks an individual a series of questions, including current date, time and location, along with others, while the individual gives verbal answers to the questions. The individual is also instructed to simultaneously keep a specific phrase in their memory, which they are asked to recall later in the test.

The answers to the questions are marked down by the interviewer using a pen and paper. At the end of the interview, the answers to the test question are scored, and the test score is intended to reflect the individual’s mental status. Today, the MMSE and various other versions of pen-and-paper type tests continue to commonly be implemented to establish the level of performance of an individual’s memory and other cognitive abilities.

What is clear is that pen-and-paper assessments are not able to match the efficiency that software based tests offer. There is a growing need for efficiency in medicine, and electronic assessments also provide the added benefit of preventing the necessity of an interviewer, such as a doctor, for test administration. This frees up valuable time for medical professionals while allowing for anyone that is concerned or curious about their memory performance a quick and accurate assessment of their cognitive abilities.