Brain HealthSmartphone Game Detects Alzheimer's with 94–97% Accuracy in Symptomatic Patients
NavegApp is a smartphone-based serious game designed to test spatial cognition — including navigation, mental rotation, and visuospatial memory. Researchers tested it on 226 participants, including people carrying the PSEN1-E280A genetic mutation that causes early-onset Alzheimer's. The app showed outstanding accuracy in identifying symptomatic carriers versus healthy controls, with AUC scores of 0.94–0.97 for navigation tasks. However, it struggled to distinguish asymptomatic carriers from healthy individuals, achieving only modest AUC scores around 0.57–0.60. The tool shows real promise as a scalable, accessible cognitive screening option, especially in low- and middle-income countries where expensive biomarker tests are unavailable, though further validation across diverse settings is needed.
