Development and evaluation of an Android-based platform for early MCI screening in an elderly population

Abstract

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate stage of cognitive decline fitting between normal cognition and dementia. With the growing aging population, this study aimed to develop and psychometrically validate an Android-based application for early MCI screening in elderly subjects. This study was conducted in two phases, including the initial design and prototyping of the application named M-Check, and the psychometric evaluation of the app. Face validity was determined by two checklists provided to the expert panel and the elderly subjects. Convergent validity of the M-Check app was assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) battery through Pearson correlation. Test–retest and internal consistency and reliability were evaluated using InterClass Correlation (ICC) and Kuder-Richardson coefficients, respectively. In addition, the usability was assessed by a System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire. SPSS 16.0 was employed to analyze the data. The app's usability assessment by the elderly and experts scored 77.11 and 82.5, respectively. Also, the correlation showed that the M-Check app was negatively correlated with the MoCA test ( r = -0.71, p < 0.05), and the ICC was more than 0.7. Moreover, the Kuder-Richardson coefficient was 0.82, corresponding to an acceptable reliability. In this study, we validated the M-Check app for MCI screening based on the growing need for mobile-based cognitive assessment tools. Such screeners are expected to take much shorter times than typical neuropsychological batteries do. Additional work is needed to ensure that M-Check is ready for use without the presence of a trained person.