Utilidad de una evaluación neuropsicológica informatizada de la memoria verbal, el Cogval-Verbal, para la detección del deterioro cognitivo. Datos preliminares.

Abstract

Neuropsychological assessment is important to determine the condition of cognitive abilities such as attention, memory, executive functions or perceptual abilities for both normal function or in cases of brain damage. Verbal memory evaluation is an important aspect of current neuropsychological testing, since it is one of the main capabilities affected by brain damage. Nowadays, the tendency is to use the advantages offered by new technologies in the evaluation of cognitive abilities to create and refine new applications and programs for further neuropsychological assessment. This study analyzed the diagnostic value of a computer based neuropsychological test (Cogval Verbal) for verbal memory assessment and compared it with two other validated and commonly used tests to detect the cognitive impairment, the Mini-Exam Cognoscitive and the Hopkins Audio Verbal Learning Test. The results indicate that the Cogval Verbal Computerized Test shows adequate diagnosis indexes in under the ROC curve area of 0.837 for immediate verbal memory and 0.862 for long-term memory, with a sensitivity of 85.71 and a specificity of 81.25 for long-term memory. In addition, the Cogval Verbal computerized test results, as well as the other tests applied, were statistically different (p <0.05) among the participants without cognitive impairment from people with cognitive impairment. These results indicate that the computerized Cogval Verbal test shows a diagnostic utility similar to the two other tests used in the study, which could be useful in detecting verbal memory capacities disturbances or neurocognitive disorder.