Mobile health and neurocognitive domains evaluation through smartphones: A meta-analysis

Francesca Siddi; Allen Amedume; Alessandro Boaro; Aditi Shah; Abdullah M Abunimer; Paul A Bain; Jacqueline Cellini; Quentin R Regestein; Timothy R Smith; Rania A Mekary

doi:10.1016/j.cmpb.2021.106484

Mobile health and neurocognitive domains evaluation through smartphones: A meta-analysis

Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2021 Nov:212:106484. doi: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2021.106484. Epub 2021 Oct 22.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Computational Neuroscience Outcomes Center, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Electronic address: f.siddi@haaglandenmc.nl.
² School of Pharmacy, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) University, 179 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
³ Computational Neuroscience Outcomes Center, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
⁴ Harvard Countway Library, 10 Shattuck St, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 1249 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02215, United States.
⁶ Computational Neuroscience Outcomes Center, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, United States; School of Pharmacy, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) University, 179 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115, United States.

PMID: 34736169
DOI: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2021.106484

Abstract

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) have significantly advanced evaluating neurocognitive functions; but, few reports have documented whether they validate neurocognitive impairments as well as paper-and-pencil neuropsychological tests.

Objective: To meta-analyze the correlation between mobile applications for neuropsychological tests and validated paper-and-pencil neuropsychological tests for evaluating neurocognitive impairments.

Method: We used PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Web of Science, and IEEE Explorer through January 2020 to identify studies that compared mobile applications for neuropsychological tests vs. paper-and-pencil neurophysiological tests. We used random-effects models via the DerSimonian and Laird method to extract pooled Pearson's correlation coefficients and we stratified by study design.

Result: Nine out of 4639 screened articles (one RCT and eight prospective longitudinal case series) were included. For the observational studies, there was a statistically significant strong and direct correlation between mobile applications for neuropsychological test scores and validated paper-and-pencil neuropsychological assessment scores (r = 0.70; 95% CI 0.59, 0.79; I² = 74.5%; p- heterogeneity <0.001). Stronger results were seen for the RCT (r = 0.92; 95% CI 0.77, 0.97).

Conclusion: This meta-analysis showed a statistically significant correlation between mobile applications and the validated paper-and-pencil neuropsychological assessments analyzed for the evaluation of neurocognitive impairments.

Keywords: App/Application; Neurocognition/Cognition; Neurocognitive domain; Neurocognitive evaluation; Smart device; Smartphone.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis
Review

MeSH terms

Mobile Applications*
Neuropsychological Tests
Prospective Studies
Smartphone
Telemedicine*