Future Research Directions for DCTclock and the Potential to Predict Alzheimer Biomarkers: Ali Jannati, MD, PhD

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"It doesn’t necessarily require an informant spending several minutes telling us how the patient is or is not able to complete activities of daily living on their own. With the same 3-to-4-minute battery of this multimodal test, how can we use their drawing behavior, time-based metrics, as well as their voice and speech to predict their level of functional impairment?"

One of the oldest and most functional assessments for cognitive decline has been the clock drawing test (CDT), which was originally developed in the 1900s as a way to evaluate soldiers afflicted with apraxia resulting from head wounds. Over time, digital versions of the CDT have expanded its utility and practicality, particularly for primary care settings where patients are most likely to present with cognitive issues. FDA-listed, Linus Health’s digital CDT, or DCTclock, is an iPad-based, artificial-intelligence (AI)-enhanced version that incorporates the Boston Process Approach, a patented approach that monitored the process patients followed and errors they made during neuropsychological tests.

In late 2021, Linus created the Digital Clock and Recall (DCR) solution, a digital cognitive assessment that expanded on the DCTclock by incorporating immediate and delayed word recall tasks to assess verbal memory. The DCTclock has been featured in more than 20 peer-reviewed journals, including research showing its ability to outperform traditional cognitive tests, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination, in detecting early signs of cognitive dysfunction.

At the 2023 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting, held April 22-27, in Boston, Massachusetts, several posters continued to highlight the sensitivity and accuracy of the DCTclock. Co-author Ali Jannati, MD, PhD, manager of Clinical Development-Research at Linus, sat down at the meeting to discuss the future plans of the DCTclock, including potential research on the horizon. He spoke specifically about the ability to detect early changes in Alzheimer disease-related biomarkers, and how the DCR solution expands the types of data clinicians are able to capture.

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REFERENCE
1. Helbig T, Toro-Serey C, Thompson K, et al. Reliability of tablet-based Digital Clock Drawing Task (DCTclock) for automated detection of cognitive impairment. Presented at: 2023 AAN Annual Meeting; April 22-27; Boston, MA.