背景:一个持续的全球挑战是管理大脑健康和了解性能在整个生命周期中的变化。
目标:我们开发并部署了一套可自我管理的,计算机化评估旨在测量视觉和听觉感觉模式中大脑健康的关键指标。在这项试点研究中,我们评估了可用性,可行性,以及以家庭为基础的评估的绩效分布,没有监督的真实世界环境。
方法:潜在参与者是未经训练的用户,他们在现有的名为BrainHQ的大脑训练应用程序中自我注册。通过招聘电子邮件与参与者联系,并进行远程注册,以完成人口统计问卷和个人设备上的29项独特评估。我们检查了参与者的参与度,评估的描述性和心理测量学特性,绩效和自我报告的人口统计学变量之间的关联,认知概况,和因子载荷。
结果:在通过招募电子邮件联系的365,782名潜在参与者中,414(0.11%)登记,其中367人(88.6%)完成了至少一项评估,104人(25.1%)完成了所有29项评估。注册参与者是,平均而言,年龄63.6(标准差14.8;范围13-107)岁,主要是女性(265/414,64%),受过教育(329/414,79.5%有学位),和白色(349/414,84.3%的白色和48/414,11.6%的有色人种)。总共72%(21/29)的评估显示没有上限或下限效应,或者具有易于修改的分数界限以消除这些效应。当将表现与自我报告的人口统计学变量相关联时,72%(21/29)的评估对年龄敏感,72%(21/29)的评估对性别不敏感,93%(27/29)的评估对种族和民族不敏感,93%(27/29)的评估对基于教育的差异不敏感。评估很简短,每个任务的平均持续时间为3(SD1.0)分钟。评估中的表现模式揭示了独特的认知特征,并加载到4个独立因素上。
结论:评估既可用又可行,需要进行全面的规范研究。可扩展和可自我管理的评估的数字工具箱,可以一目了然地(纵向地)评估大脑健康,可能会在临床试验中带来新的未来应用。诊断,和性能优化。
BACKGROUND: An ongoing global challenge is managing brain health and understanding how performance changes across the lifespan.
OBJECTIVE: We developed and deployed a set of self-administrable, computerized assessments designed to measure key indexes of brain health across the visual and auditory sensory modalities. In this pilot study, we evaluated the usability, feasibility, and performance distributions of the assessments in a home-based, real-world setting without supervision.
METHODS: Potential participants were untrained users who self-registered on an existing brain training app called BrainHQ. Participants were contacted via a recruitment email and registered remotely to complete a demographics questionnaire and 29 unique assessments on their personal devices. We examined participant engagement, descriptive and psychometric properties of the assessments, associations between performance and self-reported demographic variables, cognitive profiles, and factor loadings.
RESULTS: Of the 365,782 potential participants contacted via a recruitment email, 414 (0.11%) registered, of whom 367 (88.6%) completed at least one assessment and 104 (25.1%) completed all 29 assessments. Registered participants were, on average, aged 63.6 (SD 14.8; range 13-107) years, mostly female (265/414, 64%), educated (329/414, 79.5% with a degree), and White (349/414, 84.3% White and 48/414, 11.6% people of color). A total of 72% (21/29) of the assessments showed no ceiling or floor effects or had easily modifiable score bounds to eliminate these effects. When correlating performance with self-reported demographic variables, 72% (21/29) of the assessments were sensitive to age, 72% (21/29) of the assessments were insensitive to gender, 93% (27/29) of the assessments were insensitive to race and ethnicity, and 93% (27/29) of the assessments were insensitive to education-based differences. Assessments were brief, with a mean duration of 3 (SD 1.0) minutes per task. The pattern of performance across the assessments revealed distinctive cognitive profiles and loaded onto 4 independent factors.
CONCLUSIONS: The assessments were both usable and feasible and warrant a full normative study. A digital toolbox of scalable and self-administrable assessments that can evaluate brain health at a glance (and longitudinally) may lead to novel future applications across clinical trials, diagnostics, and performance optimization.