Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Surpassing Entertainment with Computer Games: Online Tools for Early Warnings of Mild Cognitive Impairment

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2015)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 578))

Abstract

Due to population aging, old age cognitive deficit is becoming a mass-phenomenon. Dementia, its most severe variant, is chronic, progressive, long lasting and, so far, incurable. The early sign of a higher risk for a pathological decrease in cognition is called Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Early detection of MCI is crucial for providing cost-effective care, and slowing down the deterioration. As clinical tests are infrequent and expensive, tests applicable for regular home monitoring have to be developed. In this paper, regular but voluntary use of computer games is proposed for measuring mental changes in an entertaining way. Basic considerations, challenges, proposed architectures, potential solutions based on virtual sensor fusion and statistical comparison of reference and test data sets, presentation of results, and proofs of the concept are described in the paper. The work was performed in the Maintaining and Measuring Mental Wellness (M3W) project supported by the AAL Joint Programme.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Alzheimer’s Society, UK, Dementia statistics (2014). http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/dementia-statistics/. Accessed April 2015

  2. Alzheimer’s Society, Mild Cognitive Impairment (2015). http://www.alzheimers.org.uksite/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=120. Accessed April 2015

  3. Breuer, P., Csukly, G., Hanák, P., Ketskeméty, L., Pataki, B.: Home monitoring of mental state with computer games. In: ACHI 2015 8th International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Budd, D., et al.: Impact of early intervention and disease modification in patients with predementia Alzheimer’s disease: a Markov model simulation. Clinicoecon Outcomes Res. 3, 189–195 (2011)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Cantab test battery, Cambridge Cognition (2015). http://www.cambridgecognition.com/. Accessed April 2015

  6. Dwolatzky, T.: The mindstreams computerized assessment battery for cognitive impairment and dementia. In: PETRA 2011, May 2011, pp. 501–504 (2011). ISBN: 978-1-4503-0772-7

    Google Scholar 

  7. Égerházi, A., Berecz, R., Bartók, E., Degrell, I.: Automated neuropsychological test battery (CANTAB) in mild cognitive impairment and in Alzheimer’s disease. Prog. Neuro-Psychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry 31, 746–751 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Eurostat, Population structure and ageing (2014). http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Population_structure_and_ageing. Accessed April 2015

  9. Gov.UK, G8 dementia summit agreements (2013). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/g8-dementia-summit-agreements. Accessed March 2015

  10. Hanák, P., et al.: Maintaining and measuring mental wellness. In: Proceedings of the XXVI. Neumann Kollokvium, November 2013, pp. 107–110 (2013) (in Hungarian)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Jimison, H., Pavel, M. Le, T.: Home-based cognitive monitoring using embedded measures of verbal fluency in a computer word game. In: 30th Annual International IEEE EMBS Conference, August 2008, pp. 3312–3315 (2008). doi:10.1109/IEMBS.2008.4649913

  12. López-Martínez, A., et al.: Game of gifts purchase: computer-based training of executive functions for the elderly. In: IEEE 1st International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH), November 2011, pp. 1–8 (2011), Print ISBN: 978-1-4673-0433-7 doi:10.1109/SeGAH.2011.6165448

  13. M3W Maintaining and Measuring Mental Wellness (2015). AAL Joint Programme project (ref. no. AAL-2009-2-109) https://m3w-project.eu/. Accessed April 2015

  14. Menza-Kubo, V., Morán, A.L.: UCSA: a design framework for usable cognitive system for the worried-well. Pers. Ubiquitous Comput. 17(6), 1135–1145 (2013). ISSN:1617-4909. doi:10.1007/s00779-012-0554-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. MindStreams (2015). http://www.mind-streams.com/. Accessed April 2015

  16. Ogomori, K., Nagamachi, M., Ishihara, K., Ishihara, S., Kohchi, M.: Requirements for a cognitive training game for elderly or disabled people. In: International Conference on Biometrics and Kansai Engineering, September 2011, pp 150–154 (2011). E-ISBN 978-0-7695-4512-7, Print-ISBN 978-1-4577-1356-9, doi:10.1109/ICBAKE.2011.30

  17. Sirály, E., et al.: Differentiation between mild cognitive impairment and healthy elderly population using neuropsychological tests. Neuropsychopharmacol. Hung. 15(3), 139–146 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Sirály, E., et al.: Monitoring the early signs of cognitive decline in elderly by computer games: an MRI study. PLoS ONE 10(2), e0117918 (2015). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117918

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Werner, P., Korczyn, A.D.: Mild cognitive impairment: Conceptual, assessment, ethical, and social issues. Clin. Interv. Aging 3(3), 413–420 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was performed in the Maintaining and Measuring Mental Wellness (M3W) project, supported by the AAL Joint Programme (ref. no. AAL-2009-2-109) and the Hungarian KTIA (grant no. AAL_08-1-2011-0005).

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of their project partners in Greece, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Hungary. We would like to express our special thanks to (1) E. Sirály, Semmelweis University, for her contribution to the clinical examinations with real patients using the PAL test and a selection of the M3W games; (2) N. Kiss and Á. Póczik, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, for the improvement and unification of the logging and scoring procedures; (3) L. Ketskeméty, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, for exploring and elaborating various statistical evaluation algorithms.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Measurement and Information Systems, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Műegyetem rakpart 3, Budapest, 1111, Hungary

    Béla Pataki

  2. Healthcare Technologies Knowledge Centre, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Műegyetem rakpart 3, Budapest, 1111, Hungary

    Péter Hanák

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Semmelweis University, Balassa utca 6, Budapest, 1038, Hungary

    Gábor Csukly

Authors
  1. Béla Pataki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Péter Hanák
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Gábor Csukly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Béla Pataki .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Markus Helfert

  2. Human-Computer Interaction, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Andreas Holzinger

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Martina Ziefle

  4. Inst Sup Téc, Inst de Telecom, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ana Fred

  5. Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

    John O'Donoghue

  6. Sys Tech & Image Exploitation, Fraunhofer Institute of Optonics, Lemgo, Germany

    Carsten Röcker

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Pataki, B., Hanák, P., Csukly, G. (2015). Surpassing Entertainment with Computer Games: Online Tools for Early Warnings of Mild Cognitive Impairment. In: Helfert, M., Holzinger, A., Ziefle, M., Fred, A., O'Donoghue, J., Röcker, C. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health. ICT4AWE 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 578. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27695-3_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27695-3_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27694-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27695-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation