How to Assess Cognition Using Online Cognitive Assessments

The last few decades have brought incredible advancements in healthcare—from minimally invasive procedures to life-saving cardiac implants to low-dose CT scans detecting the early signs of lung cancer. While these advancements have resulted in people living longer, the human brain—the organ that effectively governs our quality of life—just isn’t keeping up. Given the onslaught of technology and the “always-on” mentality of today’s generation, brain and mental health disorders are rising, affecting millions of people globally with no relief in sight:

• Neurological disorders continue to be the leading cause of disability worldwide, and their contribution to the overall healthcare burden is increasing.
• Between 2009 and 2015, mental health-related emergency department visits increased by 56.4% for pediatric patients and 40.8% for adults.
• 1 in 3 COVID-19 survivors have suffered a neurological or psychiatric disorder within 6 months of infection.

Healthcare providers are here to help, and the diagnosis and treatment of conditions that affect cognitive health are essential steps in improving the lives of their patients. However, clinicians are often stuck using tools that have not reached the level of advancement seen in other areas of healthcare. For example, subjective reports are not designed to provide accurate insights into a patient’s cognition. In addition, current assessment tools are often rudimentary, too specialized, difficult and expensive to administer, or not sensitive to changes.

Patients who suffer from physical or mental health conditions often exhibit cognitive symptoms.

Unfortunately, as these critical cognitive symptoms are self-reported and difficult to quantify, brain health issues can go undiagnosed and unaddressed.

Current Challenges in Online Cognitive Assessment and Care

Current tools have limitations that stand in the way of measuring cognition. Nearly any physical or mental health challenge has cognitive consequences. What neurologist, psychiatrist, or clinical psychologist goes through a day without hearing about a patient suffering from “brain fog”? Yet, these symptoms are never properly quantified unless a complete neuropsychological examination is deemed necessary, leaving most clinicians lacking important objective data that can inform diagnosis, treatment planning, evaluation of outcomes, and clear communication with patients.

Challenges remain, but improvements in technology and scientific methods have led to advanced tools that can help meet the growing demand for better brain health. Here, we briefly review some of the challenges associated with current tools and then explore a better option for measuring cognitive function.

Clinicians need a way to easily collect objective cognitive data that complements subjective findings to provide their patients with the best care.

How to Assess Cognition: Top 3 Challenges

• Diagnosing and establishing a reliable baseline
• Tracking changes and improvement in cognitive functioning to effectively adjust treatment
• Communicating cognitive health to patients and families

How to Measure Brain Health with a Modern Online Cognitive Assessment Platform

Clinicians need more objective and reliable cognitive data to supplement the gaps associated with measuring cognitive functioning. Online cognitive assessments, such as Creyos Health, give them the tools they need to improve clinical decision-making.

Creyos Health: A Modern Online Cognitive Assessment Platform

Creyos Health is a scientifically validated online cognitive assessment platform. It’s rooted in over 25 years of academic research, has been used in over 300 peer-reviewed studies, and leverages a normative database of over 85,000 people ages 6 to 99.

Comprehensive Online Cognitive Assessments Support Clinical Decision-Making

Creyos Health is an objective supplementary tool that provides easy-to-understand reports about a patient’s cognitive health based on 12 core tasks of cognitive function. It doesn’t replace anything clinicians are already doing but helps provide an objective baseline of cognitive health to be used as a diagnostic aid to confirm, validate, and strengthen diagnostic decisions.

Longitudinal Monitoring Makes It Easy to Track Change Over Time

Creyos Health reports patients’ cognitive assessment results over time. In addition, the accessibility of online cognitive assessments allows patients to be tested and retested to measure the effectiveness of different interventions.

Simple Reporting Enhances Communication

Comprehensive reports are automatically generated within minutes of a patient completing the assessment and facilitate essential conversations about a diagnosis or next steps for care. The reports are designed to be easily understood and simplify communication with patients, caregivers, and anyone else who needs to understand the results but is not well-versed in cognitive jargon.

By implementing the Creyos Health platform, clinicians can gather the insights needed to improve clinical decision-making and deliver superior patient care.

How to Assess Cognition and Drive Business Value

The Creyos Health online cognitive assessment provides benefits beyond better clinical decision making by driving additional business value:

• Reduced administrative burden: Our easy-to-use platform can administer many of the same tests that would be administered by a neuropsychologist but without the same resource investment. Plus, with our online cognitive assessment platform, patients have the flexibility to complete tests in the comfort of their own home.
• One-stop provider portal: Providers have access to our HIPAA-compliant platform, where they can manage all of their patients and assessments. Plus, built-in telehealth options allow clinicians to provide care even if patients aren’t able to come to the office.

• Simple pricing and reimbursement: The Creyos Health platform is a subscription-based solution with a flat annual fee. It’s reimbursable through various CPT codes for numerous services, including telehealth, administering assessments to establish a baseline and diagnose, and other add-on services.

Online Cognitive Assessments for Improved Patient Care

The adoption of digital technology in healthcare is on the rise. A report by the American Medical Association revealed that the desire for efficiency, flexibility, and patient safety is behind the rapid increase in the adoption of digital technology in healthcare from 2016 to 2019 across all physician specialties. That trend was accelerated even further by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. As a result, practitioners today want and need a modern solution for evaluating cognitive care.

Creyos Health streamlines ongoing cognitive care with comprehensive, easy-to-administer assessments. Initial baseline evaluations provide objective data for initial diagnostics, longitudinal comparisons make it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of continuing treatment, and simple reporting makes it easy to communicate results to patients. Thus, Creyos Health gives practitioners the ability to generate critical insights and provide improved cognitive care with modern digital tools.

Creyos Health allows specialists to easily assess and monitor potential cognitive deficits for the entire patient population, improving patient care while driving practice revenue.