USING TECHNOLOGY TO ASSESS OLDER ADULTS’ COGNITIVE AND FUNCTIONAL ABILITIES

Technological advances have the potential to increase the precision of neuropsychological assessment and to deconstruct cognitive processes leading to a deeper understanding of changes associated with cognitive aging. This presentation describes a set of studies that use digital metrics to assess cognitive and functional abilities in older adults. Participants were community-dwelling older adults who completed traditional neuropsychological tasks, newly developed digital tests, and measures of everyday functioning. Results revealed evidence of convergent validity for the digital trail making test (dTMT) and the traditional version of this measure. In addition, dTMT component processes demonstrated a unique pattern of correlation with standard measures of processing speed, inhibitory control, working memory, and set-shifting as well as a performance-based measure of medication management. This presentation will also describe results from work demonstrating the utility of using technology to capture component processes as participants completed a complex task of everyday functioning in the laboratory.