A prototype development of dementia screening on smart phone

Abstract

The proportion of the elderly population in Thailand is increasing rapidly, which is causing Thailand to step into an aging society. The most common condition in the elderly is dementia. The most common is the Alzheimer's disease, which is caused by the process of degeneration of the brain according to age. This disease is still incurable. But it can slow down the severity of the disease if detected in the early stages of the disease. This incident will affect the elderly themselves, their families, society, and their daily lives. From the problems mentioned above the researcher indicate the importance of caring for dementia patients. Therefore, there is an idea to develop a screening for dementia by allowing the elderly to test on their own. The objectives are to develop a screening for dementia in the elderly on smartphones and evaluate user satisfaction with the developed prototypes. The development system prototype using the Thai version of the Dementia Preliminary Test (MMSE-Thai 2002) is divided into 2 parts as follows: 1) Web application: users are divided into 2 parts, administrator and doctor. The administration can add a list of doctors and can edit the information on the questions in the test. The doctor will be able to view the history or details of the test takers 2) Mobile applica-tion by allowing the elderly to complete 11 tests after completing the test, the system will show the results of the test and the risk of dementia and can see a chart showing the scores that have been tested each time. This research uses several techniques to match the test, such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, audio recording, and pattern lock view to a good extent. The developed system is just a prototype to prove technical concepts only. If it is applied to practice, clinical trials are required to measure sensitivity and specificity including the appropriate cut-off point.