Can an App Tell If You Have Dementia Years Before Your Doctor?

A gaming platform recently won an award for innovation in early dementia diagnosis, and another dementia-predicting tool was announced in Canada, reports New Scientist . "Sea Hero Quest" requires players to travel the oceans looking for lost memories, and co-designer Hugo Spiers of University College London says disruption to spatial orientation is an early Alzheimer's symptom. Spiers and colleagues are developing a version that could use game scores to tell doctors whether the players might be showing early signs of the disorder. Meanwhile, the Cognetivity startup offers a five-minute test played on an iPad, which involves players being displayed various scenes in quick succession. Players are tasked with picking out those containing animals as quickly as they can. The Cognetivity team opted to focus on visual processing because this is another of the first skills to deteriorate in the early stages of dementia. Experts say although it is too early to assess the true effectiveness of such apps, an optimal strategy may eventually emerge as more people use them. Still, even if new insights are gained, it would take much more work to determine exactly which type of dementia was likely to develop.