AI robot tool automates memory test

Researchers at Australian Catholic University are testing an automated over-the-phone memory assessment for older people.

The team has developed an artificial intelligence robot – called CogAI – to deliver the reliable and valid phone assessment of the well-known cognitive test TICS-M, which determines dementia risk.

“We’re trying to develop a way of automating that so a person can ring a number and the same assessment takes place and they get the same result,” lead researcher Dr Tony Florio tells Community Care Review.

“We’ve used speech recognition and text-to-speech to do the assessment. That gets recorded on a computer, then it gets scored, and a result comes out. We’re testing that process against a psychologist doing it.”

That study – comparing the robot to a psychologist – is looking at the validity of the tool. The team is conducting a second study comparing the robot to the robot one week apart to test its reliability.

Another researcher in the team is looking within the instrument to see if there are any patterns that might be helpful to identify differences between people, said Dr Florio – a clinical psychologist and cognitive computing scientist.

Tool aims to remove worries about dementia

The researchers hope CogAI can assure older people about their near future and help them worry less about dementia.

“If the person’s answers are in the expected range for their age, sex and years of education, the robot can make a prediction that there will be an absence of the onset of dementia in the next five years. This prediction has a 95 per cent accuracy – that is it will be right 95 per cent of the time. For many people this will mean they can worry less about developing dementia,” Dr Florio said.

However, the CogAI cannot predict dementia or cognitive impairment. Scores below the expected range can be due to factors such as hearing, speech problems, illness, medications or lifestyle, but this is out of the assessment’s scope.

“Memory is an issue in older people and sometimes it can be associated with dementia. But it can also be associated with a lot of other things and sometimes you want to rule it out. If memory turns out to be good but there are some other problems, at least you know it’s something else,” Dr Florio said.

Dementia prevention potential

Another possible use of the CogAI is for regular monitoring of memory over time to look for changes or a lack of changes. This will be useful for both dementia prevention studies and dementia prevention programs, said Dr Florio.

“There are several dementia prevention projects in Australia and more on the way. It will take a long time to know if any form of prevention works, but with regular – for example annual – memory assessment, we can determine if prevention is going in the expected direction or not.”

Automating the test will also reduce public health costs compared to the current process of a person conducting the assessment. “It’s amazing how much it costs to do an assessment, a report and integrate it with other results whereas this can do all that automatically,” Dr Florio told CCR.

Studies recruiting participants

The researchers are seeking community-dwelling seniors aged between 60 and 80 to test CogAI. Participants will be asked questions by the AI robot about their memory and cognition in two 10-minute phone calls, one week apart, over a month.

Participants should be English speaking and free of any known dementia or cognitive decline. They will undergo a hearing assessment over the phone to ensure they can hear the questions adequately, Dr Florio said.

“We also we want to have people with a clear speaking voice, so the AI can understand what they say,’ he said.

To register your interest in the study or request more information contact Katrina Swavley at katrina.swavley@acu.edu.au or Anastasia Serafimovska at anastasia.serafimovska@myacu.edu.au.

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