There is a rising prevalence of cognitive impairment such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, including Alzheimer disease.
Cognitive tests are tools used to assess various aspects of brain function, collectively known as cognition.
Cognition encompasses abilities such as thinking, learning, remembering, and using judgment and language.
Tests of cognitive ability measure a wide spectrum of these mental abilities.
Cognitive testing is a method used to assess a person’s cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, language, reasoning, and perception.
Such tests can help identify cognitive impairments, can track changes over time, and aid in diagnosing conditions like dementia or traumatic brain injury, and can be used to guide treatment plans.
Comparing random assigned cognitive screening with no screening among 4004 older primary care patients with no indication of cognitive impairment, and those who screened positive on the instruments were referred for a voluntary diagnostic assessment.
Nonpharmacologic interventions, as physical exercise and cognitive activities, have shown small clinical effects.
Meta-analysis does not support an advantage suggesting that psychoeducation vs other caregiver or caregiver-patient interventions was associated with better outcomes relative to another.
The harms of interventions in individuals with some degree of cognitive impairment include adverse effects of pharmacologic interventions.
An estimated 10% of cognitive impairment may be due to reversible or partially reversible causes.
Such processes with cognitive impairment that may be somewhat reversible include: depression, medication adverse effects, and metabolic induced disorders.
Screening could lead to earlier identification and resolution of these conditions.
Neurocognitive screening may be useful for improving care for a variety of medical problems exacerbated by cognitive impairment.
Neurocognitive testing: a way to measure brain function non invasively.
These tests called neuropsychological tests, look at how the health of your brain affects your thinking skills and behavior.
Neuropsychological testing include:
Ability to think, understand, learn, and remember (cognition).
Memory
Motor function (walking, coordination, etc.)
Perception
Problem-solving and decision-making
Verbal ability
Neurocognitive testing helps evaluate:
Degenerative neurologic diseases
Brain injury
Emotional disorders
Normal brain changes related to aging
Movement disorders
Testing uses paper-and-pencil tests or computerized tests to assess important aspects of cognition: attention, memory, language, reaction time, and perception.
Neurocognitive testing utilizes different tests to specifically crafted to measure particular aspects of brain function.
These tests can measure subtle aspects of brain function.
Testing is objective, and the scores give compare a person’s functioning to the rest of the population, or against themselves at a previous time.
The scores are used to measure brain function, and often used for the diagnosis of problems, such as concussion, dementia, or learning disabilities.
Concussion and dementia are accompanied by subtle changes in attention, perception, and hand-eye skills which can be recognized with simple tests.
Such testing can help determine someone’s fitness for returning to work or athletic play, or their capacity for living alone and managing their own finances.
Neurocognitive testing can allow tracking through time to baseline cognition in mild cognitive dementia, or to assess recovery in concussion.
Flanker Test requires answering which way arrows are pointing in relation to a question: it reflects quickness and accuracy.
Patients with impaired brain health cause significantly longer reaction times, when compared to healthy control users, and more incorrect answers.
Flanker Task also measures executive function, meaning impulse restraining activities.
Trails AB tests visual attention and task switching, by taping on 25 dots in their correct order, as quickly as you can.
Trails AB test gives information about visual search speed, scanning, speed of processing, mental flexibility, executive functioning. and task switching.
Stroop effect measures how long it takes one to overcome cognitive interference.
Cognitive tests are assessments of the cognitive capabilities.
Common cognitive tests include the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Mini0Cog and various neuropsychological assessments.
These tests are designed to identify cognitive impairments, which can be indicative of conditions like mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
These tests typically involve tasks such as repeating lists of words, spelling words backward, or drawing a clock, and they usually take 15 minutes or less to administer.
These tests assess domains such as memory, attention, language, and executive function.
Cognitive tests are often used to screen older adults for mild cognitive impairment which is characterized by noticeable memory problems that do not interfere significantly with daily activities.
Individuals with MCI are at a higher risk of developing dementia, although some may remain stable or even improve over time.
Cognitive tests cannot diagnose specific conditions on their own.
Further testing, including neuroimaging and comprehensive neuropsychological assessments, is often required to confirm a diagnosis and determine the underlying cause of cognitive impairment.
Abstract reasoning tests and diagrammatic style tests, are utilized by examining a person’s problem-solving skills.
This test measures the ability to work flexibly with unfamiliar information to find solutions.
A situational judgement test is used to examine how an individual responds to certain situations.
Working memory
Intelligence tests with non-verbal assessment of executive functioning, useful with the language and hearing impaired.
Mental age
Miller Analogies Test: to determine those who are able to think analytically, and those who are memorizing and repeating information.
Otis–Lennon School Ability Test: to identify which students are intellectually gifted.
The Raven’s Progressive Matrices is a nonverbal test consisting of 60 multiple choice questions used to measure the individual’s abstract reasoning, and is considered a nonverbal way to test an individual’s fluid intelligence.
Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales: measures the memory, reasoning, knowledge, and processing power of the user and is able to determine overall intelligence, cognitive ability, and detect any cognitive impairment or learning disabilities.
Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales test measures five factors of cognitive ability: fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and working memory.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: is used to determine and assess the intelligence of the participant.
It is used to test an individual’s intelligence quotient, assess the level of the individuals verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children: is for children within the age range of six to sixteen years old to help determine a child’s intelligence quotient, it is often used to determine a child’s cognitive abilities.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale this test helps assess the level of the individuals verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence: is used to assess the cognitive ability of children ages two years and six months old to seven years and seven months old: testing on the following: block design, information, object assembly, picture naming, and receptive vocabulary.
Children between the ages of four years old, to seven years and 7 months old, are testing: coding, comprehension, matrix reasoning, picture completion, picture concepts, similarities, symbol search, vocabulary, and word reasoning.
Wonderlic test: The Wonderlic test is a multiple choice test consisting of 50 questions within a 12-minute time frame.
The test determines not the individuals intelligence quotient, but also the strengths and weaknesses of the individual.
The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) is a test used to assess neuro-cognitive dysfunctions associated with neurologic disorders, drug manipulations, and neuro-cognitive syndromes.
It can test for: working memory, learning, executive function, visual, verbal and episodic memory, attention, information processing and reaction time, as well as social and emotion recognition, decision making and response control.
Cognitive Ability Test was is used to predict student success through the evaluation of verbal, non-verbal, mathematical, and spatial reasoning.
The Cognitive Drug Research computerized assessment system is used to help determine if a drug has cognitive-impairing properties.
It is also used to ensure that unwanted interactions with alcohol and other medications do not occur.
Cognitive pretests are used to evaluate the comprehensibility of questions on a survey.
Draw-a-Person test: can be used on children, adolescents, and adults.
It is most commonly used as a test for children and adolescents to assess their cognitive and intellectual ability by scoring their ability to draw human figures.
The Knox Cube Imitation Test (KCIT) is a nonverbal test used to assess intelligence.
Four 1-inch black cubes, 4 inches apart, are fastened to a piece of thin boarding, and the operator moves the cube from left to right facing the subject, and after completing each movement, the latter is asked to do likewise.
Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery:
Intended test use: placement, admission, fulfilling a requirement, aptitude
Skills tested: listening, grammar, vocabulary
Porteus Maze test is a supplement to the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test.
PMT performance a valid indicator of planning and behavioral disinhibition across socioeconomic status and culture, can be administered without the use of language, and is inexpensive.
PMEST formula: Personality, Matter, Energy, Space and Time, consisting of five fundamental categories- the arrangement of which is used to establish the facet order.
Knowledge hierarchies Memory Iconic memory Long-term memory Short-term memory Semantic memory Episodic memory Visual short-term memory Working memory Self Intelligent self-assessment Rouge test Mirror test Metacognition
The Sally–Anne test (The ability to attribute false beliefs to others): This test has been used in psychological research to investigate theory of mind.
Neuropsychological tests: These are standardized test which are given in the same manner to all examinees and are scored in a similar fashion.
The examinees scores on the tests are interpreted by comparing their score to that of healthy individuals of a similar demographic background and to standard levels of operation.