A cloud-based mobile platform to monitor and counteract cognitive decline

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) are receiving increasing attention as a risk factor for incident dementia. Cognitive training has been reported to delay and/or counteract cognitive decline. During the last years, software applications have been increasingly used to support cognitive training. Here we describe a mobile platform for cognitive training: a mobile application that stores all data of the exergames played by subjects on a cloud database. The application contains exergames aimed to train attention, memory and executive functions, that are some of the functions mostly involved in deterioration. We carried out two preliminary studies. The first study involves healthy subjects of different ages (15-19, 20-30 and 50-65 years old) and intends to compare exergames performance results between age groups. We also ran a preliminary acceptance study, involving persons with SCD. In all games, performance varies with age. Young players perform better than the older group. A preliminary result of the second study shows that there is a good acceptance of the application. We conclude that the application is a promising tool to access cognitive functions.