Digital screening for cognitive decline in the Spanish language for older adults

BackgroundRecent technological advances in digital assessment of auditory and cognitive function may be used to circumvent the costs associated to screening for cognitive decline in the general population. Pre-clinical cognitive screening could have a transformative impact for preventive care in our increasingly old world population. However, advances in digital assessment need to be adapted for Spanish-speaking populations as innovation occurs mainly in English.ObjectiveThis study explores the potential of a novel screening battery for cognitive decline that utilizes digital tests of cognitive and auditory function adapted to the Spanish language.MethodsParticipants were evaluated on standard clinical scales and questionnaires, and on a digital battery of auditory and cognitive tests with potential clinical value to screen cognitive decline.ResultsWe report the ability to detect minimal cognitive impairment (MCI; 3/10 tests) and dementia (10/10 tests) of each digital test and the full battery. We further show concurrent validity for cognitive screening with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and describe the shared variance across tests in the battery. Lastly, we show multiple regression models predicted with medium sensitivity (57%) and high specificity (97%) the dementia cases, and with high sensitivity (93%) but low specificity (31%) the MCI cases.ConclusionsOverall, this study demonstrates discriminatory value and concurrent validity to screen for cognitive decline in older adults using open-access digital auditory and cognitive tests in the Spanish language. Follow-up studies with larger and more diverse samples will be instrumental in achieving cognitive screening procedures for the general population.