Evaluating the potential of CogEvo to detect early neurocognitive declines in healthy middle-aged and elderly individuals within Japan

Abstract

This study aims to obtain standard scores on CogEvo (Total Brain Care Co. Ltd, Kobe, Japan)—a computer-based assessment tool of cognitive functioning—and to examine its features for healthy middle-aged and elderly individuals. In addition, the study seeks to investigate CogEvo’s potential to detect individuals below the MoCA-J reference point. This cross-sectional study utilized two datasets of secondary data: Dataset 1 consisted of CogEvo scores, together with age and gender data, obtained by Total Brain Care Co. Ltd, with the number of participants varying for each CogEvo task (N=726~1,421). Dataset 2 consisted of CogEvo and MoCA-J scores for 20 middle-aged and elderly adults from the general community. The rates for detecting MoCA-J scores of 25 or less for sensitivity and specificity were not particularly high, at 66.7% and 63.6%, respectively. However, within Dataset 1, the CogEvo scores for flashing lights began to decline in individuals in their 60s, which suggests that CogEvo may be effective in detecting age-related declines in visuomotor cognitive functioning within healthy middle-aged and elderly adults.