Investigating the application of "Guttmann Cognitest"® in older adults and people with acquired brain injury

Gabriele Cattaneo; Alba Roca-Ventura; Eva Heras; Maria Anglada; Jan Missé; Encarnació Ulloa; Simon Fankhauser; Eloy Opisso; Alberto García-Molina; Javier Solana-Sánchez

doi:10.3389/fneur.2023.1292960

Investigating the application of "Guttmann Cognitest"^® in older adults and people with acquired brain injury

Front Neurol. 2024 Jan 8:14:1292960. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1292960. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Gabriele Cattaneo^{1

2

3}, Alba Roca-Ventura^{1

3

4}, Eva Heras⁵, Maria Anglada⁵, Jan Missé⁵, Encarnació Ulloa⁵, Simon Fankhauser^{1

2

3}, Eloy Opisso^{1

2

3}, Alberto García-Molina^{1

2

3}, Javier Solana-Sánchez^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Institut Guttmann, Institut Universitari de Neurorehabilitació Adscrit a la UAB, Badalona, Spain.
² Departament de Medicina, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
³ Fundació Institut d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol, Barcelona, Spain.
⁴ Departament de Medicina, Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
⁵ Servei Envelliment i Salut Servei Andorrà d'Atenció Sanitària, Andorra la Vella, Andorra.

Abstract

Introduction: Digital solutions for cognitive assessment are currently not only widely used in experimental contexts but can also be useful in clinical practice for efficient screening and longitudinal follow-up. The "Guttmann Cognitest"^®, which includes seven computerized tasks designed to assess main cognitive functions, revealed in a previous validation study to be a potential useful tool to assess cognitive functioning in healthy middle-aged adults.

Method: Here, we present results from a validation in two different populations: one consisting of older adults, and the other comprising young and middle-aged individuals, some of them affected by acquired brain injury. To perform a convergent validity test, older adults were also administered with the MOCA, while young and middle-aged individuals were administered with a short neuropsychological assessment including gold-standard neuropsychological tests. We also conducted sensitivity and specificity analysis to establish the utility of this instrument in identifying potential cognitive dysfunctions in the two groups.

Results: Results demonstrated strong convergent validity as well as good specificity and sensitivity characteristics.

Discussion: This tool is a valid and useful instrument to assess cognitive functioning and detecting potential cases of cognitive dysfunctions in older adults and clinical populations.

Keywords: aging; cognitive decline; cognitive functioning; computerized cognitive assessment; memory.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. GC is partially funded by the Fundació La Marató De TV3 (202211_30) and the Alzheimer Drug Discovery Foundation (RDADB-202212–2024379). JS-S is partially funded by the Fundació La Marató De TV3 (202211_30) and the Alzheimer Drug Discovery Foundation (RDADB-202212–2024379).