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Background: Smart Aging is a Serious games (SGs) platform in a 3D virtual environment in which users perform a set of screening tests that address various cognitive skills. The tests are structured as 5 tasks of activities of daily life in a familiar environment. The main goal of the present study is to compare a cognitive evaluation made with Smart Aging with those of a classic standardized screening test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Methods: One thousand one-hundred thirty-one healthy adults aged between 50 and 80 (M = 64.3 ± 8.3) were enrolled in the study. They received a cognitive evaluation with the MoCA and the Smart Aging platform. Participants were grouped according to their MoCA global and specific cognitive domain (i.e., memory, executive functions, working memory, visual spatial elaboration, language, and orientation) scores and we explored differences among these groups in the Smart Aging indices. Results: One thousand eighty-six older adults (M = 64.0 ± 8.0) successfully completed the study and were stratified according to their MoCA score: Group 1 with MoCA < 27 (n = 360); Group 2 with 27 ≥ MoCA < 29 (n = 453); and Group 3 with MoCA ≥ 29 (n = 273). MoCA groups significantly differed in most of the Smart Aging indices considered, in particular as concerns accuracy (ps < 0.001) and time (ps < 0.001) for completing most of the platform tasks. Group 1 was outperformed by the other two Groups and was slower than them in these tasks, which were those supposed to assess memory and executive functions. In addition, significant differences across groups also emerged when considering the single cognitive domains of the MoCA and the corresponding performances in each Smart Aging task. In particular, this platform seems to be a good proxy for assessing memory, executive functions, working memory, and visual spatial processes. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the validity of Smart Aging for assessing cognitive functions in normal aging. Future studies will validate this platform also in the clinical aging populations.
Pubmed ID: 29209200
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The Museum of Comparative Anthropogeny (MOCA) is a collection of comparative information regarding humans and our closest evolutionary cousins (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans i.e, great apes), with an emphasis on uniquely human features. MOCA is organized by Domains, each grouping Topics by areas of interest and scientific discipline. Each topic entry will eventually cover existing information about a particular difference (alleged or documented) between humans and non-human hominids. Comparisons of these non-human hominids with humans are difficult, as so little is known about their phenotypic features (phenomes), in contrast to humans. Ethical, fiscal and practical issues also limit collection of further information about great apes. MOCA attempts to collect existing information about human-specific differences from great apes, currently scattered in the literature. Having such information in one location could lead to new insights and multi-disciplinary interactions, and to ethically-sound studies to explain differences, and uniquely human specializations. MOCA is not targeted at experts in specific disciplines, but rather aims to communicate basic information to a broad audience of scientists from many backgrounds, and to the interested lay public. MOCA includes not only aspects wherein there are known or apparent differences between humans and great apes, but additionally, topics for which popular wisdom about claimed or assumed differences is not entirely correct. It is for all these reasons that MOCA is called a Museum, and not an Encyclopedia or Database.
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