Dementia medical screening using mobile applications: A systematic review with a new mapping model

[Display omitted] •New systematic reviews based on recent criteria for dementia screening methods.•New mapping between dementia screening apps and neurodegenerative cognitive areas.•Performance analysis based on different measures including DSM-5 criteria and comprehensiveness.•275 mobile screening apps for dementia screening were critically analysed using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria.•Useful mapping to cognitive areas in order to pinpoint to the appropriate app to be used by clinicians in a clinical setting. Early detection is the key to successfully tackling dementia, a neurocognitive condition common among the elderly. Therefore, screening using technological platforms such as mobile applications (apps) may provide an important opportunity to speed up the diagnosis process and improve accessibility. Due to the lack of research into dementia diagnosis and screening tools based on mobile apps, this systematic review aims to identify the available mobile-based dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) apps using specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. More importantly, we critically analyse these tools in terms of their comprehensiveness, validity, performance, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. The research findings suggest diagnosticians in a clinical setting use dementia screening apps such as ALZ and CognitiveExams since they cover most of the domains for the diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders. Further, apps such as Cognity and ACE-Mobile have great potential as they use machine learning (ML) and AI techniques, thus improving the accuracy of the outcome and the efficiency of the screening process. Lastly, there was overlapping among the dementia screening apps in terms of activities and questions they contain therefore mapping these apps to the designated cognitive domains is a challenging task, which has been done in this research.