Feature Extraction of Mild Cognitive Impairment Using a Dual-Task of Drawing and Counting Test

Abstract

From the perspective of preventive care, a monitoring function that detects a decline in cognitive function would be useful as an information and communications technology (ICT) based service for watching over elderly people. We developed a system that evaluates cognitive functioning by simultaneously measuring dual tasks using a tablet computer. The tasks comprised a spiral drawing task and a color change counting task. The objective of this research is feature extraction of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using this system. To do so, we compared the results of dual task tests for three participant groups: elderly people with suspected MCI, healthy elderly people, and healthy young people. The analyses were based on the amount of time required for drawing each section and the drawing velocity. The results indicate a significant difference between the MCI elders and the other two groups regarding the amount of time required for drawing the section close to the center of the spiral if the difficulty of the test’s sub-task is adjusted.