Deans' stroke musings: Using the Virtual Supermarket Cognitive Training Application as a Screening Tool for Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Using the Virtual Supermarket Cognitive Training Application as a Screening Tool for Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Wouldn't you think that your doctor should be testing your cognitive abilities post-stroke so appropriate protocols can be prescribed to prevent further decline?
An article discussing it here;
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2015/01/15/study-harnessing-a-virtual-reality-brain-training-game-to-diagnose-mild-cognitive-impairment-mci/

The actual research here;
Using the Virtual Supermarket Cognitive Training Application as a Screening Tool for Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Zygouris S¹, Giakoumis D², Votis K², Doumpoulakis S², Konstantinos N¹, Segkouli S³, Charalampos K⁴, Tzovaras D², Tsolaki M¹.

Author information

Abstract

Background: Recent research advocates the potential of virtual reality (VR) applications in assessing cognitive functions highlighting the possibility of using a VR application for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) screening. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate whether a VR cognitive training application, the virtual supermarket (VSM), can be used as a screening tool for MCI. Methods: Two groups, one of healthy older adults (n = 21) and one of MCI patients (n = 34), were recruited from day centers for cognitive disorders and administered the VSM and a neuropsychological test battery. The performance of the two groups in the VSM was compared and correlated with performance in established neuropsychological tests. At the same time, the effectiveness of a combination of traditional neuropsychological tests and the VSM was examined. Results: VSM displayed a correct classification rate (CCR) of 87.30% when differentiating between MCI patients and healthy older adults, while it was unable to differentiate between MCI subtypes. At the same time, the VSM correlates with various established neuropsychological tests. A limited number of tests were able to improve the CCR of the VSM when combined with the VSM for screening purposes. Discussion: VSM appears to be a valid method of screening for MCI in an older adult population though it cannot be used for MCI subtype assessment. VSM's concurrent validity is supported by the large number of correlations between the VSM and established tests. It is considered a robust test on its own as the inclusion of other tests failed to improve its CCR significantly.