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GeNeDis 2014 pp 63–77Cite as

On the Comparison of a Novel Serious Game and Electroencephalography Biomarkers for Early Dementia Screening

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Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 821))

Abstract

Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment are at high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. Besides episodic memory dysfunction they show deficits in accessing contextual knowledge that further specifies a general spatial navigation task or an executive function (EF) virtual action planning. Virtual reality (VR) environments have already been successfully used in cognitive rehabilitation and show increased potential for use in neuropsychological evaluation allowing for greater ecological validity while being more engaging and user friendly. In our study we employed the in-house platform of virtual action planning museum (VAP-M) and a sample of 25 MCI and 25 controls, in order to investigate deficits in spatial navigation, prospective memory, and executive function. In addition, we used the morphology of late components in event-related potential (ERP) responses, as a marker for cognitive dysfunction. The related measurements were fed to a common classification scheme facilitating the direct comparison of both approaches. Our results indicate that both the VAP-M and ERP averages were able to differentiate between healthy elders and patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and agree with the findings of the virtual action planning supermarket (VAP-S). The sensitivity (specificity) was 100 % (98 %) for the VAP-M data and 87 %(90 %) for the ERP responses. Considering that ERPs have proven to advance the early detection and diagnosis of “presymptomatic AD,” the suggested VAP-M platform appears as an appealing alternative.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, CH-3010, Bern, Switzerland

    Ioannis Tarnanas, René Muri & Tobias Nef

  2. Neuroinformatics Laboratory, School of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Nikos Laskaris

  3. 3rd Department of Neurology, Medical School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Magda Tsolaki

  4. Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Department of Neurology and Clinical Research, University Hospital Inselspital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    René Muri

  5. ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Tobias Nef

  6. University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Urs P. Mosimann

Authors
  1. Ioannis Tarnanas
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  2. Nikos Laskaris
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  3. Magda Tsolaki
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  4. René Muri
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  5. Tobias Nef
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  6. Urs P. Mosimann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ioannis Tarnanas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece

    Panayiotis Vlamos

  2. Department of Informatics, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece

    Athanasios Alexiou

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Tarnanas, I., Laskaris, N., Tsolaki, M., Muri, R., Nef, T., Mosimann, U.P. (2015). On the Comparison of a Novel Serious Game and Electroencephalography Biomarkers for Early Dementia Screening. In: Vlamos, P., Alexiou, A. (eds) GeNeDis 2014. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 821. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08939-3_11

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