Dementia Screening Tool (DST) App Review

In a busy primary care practice, providers frequently encounter patients or their family members who request dementia screening. Although my current clinic has a neurologist and neuropsychologist available, a fully functional dementia clinic is probably not available to most community-based primary care providers.

So how does a busy primary care provider screen for dementia? There are many validated screening tools including the Mini-Cog, MoCA, MMSE, SLUMS, and AD8, among others. Here at iMedicalApps, we have reviewed a number of geriatrics apps, including many from the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) — Geriatrics at Your Fingertips,Multimorbidity/MCC GEMS, iGeriatrics, and AGS GEMS — that contain some of these tools.

Last year, I reviewed the app AlzDxRx which helps providers screen, diagnose, and manage patients with Alzheimer’s disease and contains several tools, including the Mini-Cog. However, it did not contain the SLUMS or MoCA, as these are proprietary screening tools. Subsequently, we favorably reviewed a dedicated SLUMS app called eSLUMS. Now another dementia screening called the Dementia Screening Tool (DST) is available for iOSand Android devices. The Dementia Screening Toolis an approved medical device and was developed in Germany by Dr. Sebastian Horn. The author’s website claims a sensitivity of 97% for the DST.

The DST app does not contain references for any of its content or references for DST compared to Mini-Cog, MoCA, MMSE, SLUMS, etc. But this info is widely available in other medical references. The DST reportedly has a sensitivity/specificity greater than MMSE and is on par with the MoCA and Mini-Cog. The app is essentially a “calculator app” and has some limited information on “next steps,” “results interpretation,” etc.

Overall, the Dementia Screening Test (DST) is an excellent addition to the growing library of dementia screeners available in the app stores. While it’s designed for patient and/or informant use, it can be used by providers as well.

Likes

• Brings the DST “medical device” to iOS and Android devices
• Data input and clock drawing tests work well on a mobile device
• Available for Android

Dislikes

• No information on evidence for DST compared to other screening tools or references
• Expensive
• Explanation of results is incomplete

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/kevinmd/77789