Mobile Cognitive Assessment for all Ages – Development of the Cognition App CogniA

Societies are confronted with increasing numbers of older adults and cases of dementia with societal burdens for all ages. Understanding the protective and risk factors earlier in adulthood that may lead to cognitive decline in older age offers one promising avenue for prevention. So far, cognitive changes in middle adulthood are barely investigated in this regard. One important reason for that is the lack of innovative, digital, and reliable tools that would allow a large-scale and repeated assessment in this population.

Together with Sanquin, the only Dutch blood donation organization, this project aims (1) to develop a mobile application to assess cognition and (2) to validate the app with blood donors of all ages. The project outcomes will create synergies between psychological and public health research using digital sciences.

Project objectives

The project consists of two phases, which realize the objectives of this project:

• develop a novel smartphone-based app for an easy and large-scale assessment of cognition in healthy adults;
• investigate the validity of the application in middle-aged adults.

Once developed, the app will be administered to assess cognition digitally, innovatively, and reliably in blood donors to promote research in combating cognitive decline.

Potential impact

• Scientific: Any researcher with the need to assess cognition in younger or middle adulthood currently faces the problem that a suitable smartphone-based test is missing. Current tests are often administered face-to-face and are therefore not suited for large scale distribution, and they were often only developed for older adults or patients. By creating a mobile application to assess cognition. This project aims at overcoming these limitations.
• Societal: Sanquin is interested in measuring and monitoring the cognitive well-being of their donors, as there are some studies that indicate that a low iron level in the blood may cause cognitive issues. The app developed within this project will provide additional value to another ongoing project, a ‘biobank’ (Sanquin Future Health), with the aim of collecting, storing, and analyzing small blood samples collected from the donation. As such, the project would directly support societal needs in public health.

Duration

The project will run for one year starting from September 2023 onwards.

Multidisciplinary project team

The project combines expertise in cognitive assessment across the lifespan provided by Dr. Nicola Ballhausen and Dr. Alexandra Hering (lead applicant) who both work as Assistant Professors at the Department of Developmental Psychology, with the skills in transforming these assessments into an app-based tool provided by Assistant Professor Dr. Elisabeth Huis in ‘t Veld and PhD candidate Judita Rudokaité from the Department of Cognitive Schience and Artificial Intelligence.

Tjaša Petročnik, PhD candidate at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, contributes to the project with her expertise in health data governance and regulation, which allows for continuous reflections and discussions throughout the project on the legal and ethical implication of processing large-scale personal data.

With Sanquin as public partner and co-funder, the project has a strong societal stakeholder actively supporting the execution of the project. Sanquin is the only non-profit organization in charge of blood supply in the Netherlands and as such a unique partner with great expertise in public health. Dr Katja van den Hurk is a key member of Sanquin’s health research division with great expertise in health, epidemiology and biostatistics.

The collaboration between the project partners and Sanquin is ensured since Dr. Elisabeth Huis in ‘t Veld and Judita Rudokaité are also affiliated with Sanquin.

This project is funded by Tilburg University’s Digital Sciences for Society program: