Longitudinal Comparison of in Clinic and at Home Administration of the Cogstate Brief Battery and Demonstrated Practice Effects in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging

Background The Cogstate Brief Battery (CBB) is a computerized cognitive assessment that can be completed in clinic or at home. Design/Objective This retrospective study investigated whether practice effects / performance trajectories of the CBB differ by location of administration. Participants/Setting Participants included 1439 cognitively unimpaired individuals age 50–75 at baseline participating in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA), a population-based study of cognitive aging. Sixty three percent of participants completed the CBB in clinic only and 37% completed CBB both in clinic and at home. Measurements The CBB consists of four subtests: Detection, Identification, One Card Learning, and One Back. Linear mixed effects models were used to evaluate performance trajectories in clinic and at home. Results Results demonstrated significant practice effects between sessions 1 to 2 for most CBB measures. Practice effects continued over subsequent testing sessions, to a lesser degree. Average practice effects/trajectories were similar for each location (home vs. clinic). One Card Learning and One Back accuracy performances were lower at home than in clinic, and this difference was large in magnitude for One Card Learning accuracy. Participants performed faster at home on Detection reaction time, although this difference was small in magnitude. Conclusions Results suggest the location where the CBB is completed has an important impact on performance, particularly for One Card Learning accuracy, and there are practice effects across repeated sessions that are similar regardless of where testing is completed.