Primary Care Detection of Cognitive Impairment Leveraging Health & Consumer Technologies in Underserved Communities: The MyCog Strategy

Background Early identification of cognitive impairment (CI), including Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), is a top public health priority. Yet in primary care settings that manage the health of most community‐dwelling older adults, less than half of patients with any CI are detected and/or diagnosed. Among community health centers that serve marginalized patients, rates of detection may be far lower. To address this, we sought to test a primary care‐based strategy (‘MyCog’) to improve CI detection as part of an NIH‐sponsored consortium (DetectCID). Method The MyCog strategy includes a brief iPad‐based, self‐administered, electronic health record (EHR)‐linked cognitive assessment that leverages two well validated measures from the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery and has easily interpretable results with ‘turnkey’ recommendations to enhance clinical decision making. Clinician and practice administrator feedback was sought via cognitive interviews and focus groups to ensure the assessment could properly function in typical workflows. Based on this feedback a self‐administered tool was built, with a simple interpretable result (yes or no, cognitive impairment detected). It was then validated in one academic geriatrics practice among 111 older adults. Result The refined self‐administered tool was further validated in a geriatric clinical population, with interviewer and self‐administered MyCog versions strongly correlated (Spearman r = 0.75) and similar average response time per trial (0.914 sec. vs. 0.958 sec.). Use of the two tests demonstrated acceptable AUC values separately for detecting CI (0.84 and 0.79, respectively). But combined, these measures provide incremental diagnostic utility (AUC = 0.95). Conclusion We will launch the MyCog Trial at 24 practices from a national network of primary care centers for older adults on Medicare that will be randomized to MyCog or usual care. Clinics receiving MyCog will utilize a protocol to implement the intervention during Medicare Annual Wellness Visits and whenever a cognitive concern is expressed. Findings from the DetectCID consortium and MyCog Trial will directly inform future standards in primary care settings, especially those that serve health disparate patient populations.