Penn State Center for Healthy Aging: Putting technology to work for older adults by Marilynn Larkin, MA

It's no secret in the medical community that dementia tests are often wrong. In fact, a recent study found that results of three tests commonly used in primary care settings are frequently inaccurate and may incorrectly identify someone as having dementia, or not. That study pointed to flaws in the tests themselves-biases that led to misclassification based on factors such as age, education and ethnicity. Yet any test that's given in a laboratory or physician's office can't ensure that the results seen in the testing environment are similar to what happens in real life, states Martin Sliwinski, PhD, director of Penn State University's Center for Healthy Aging. ... So Sliwinski and his team began studying the feasibility of doing ambulatory assessments of cognitive function in an individual's natural environment.