DMapp: a developing promising approach to monitor symptoms progression and stimulate memory in Italian people with cognitive impairments

Background Based on recent researches on the use of natural language processing techniques for very early detection of cognitive decline and the benefits of cognitive stimulation for people with cognitive impairments, the Dementia Monitoring application (DMapp) is developed inside the Memento project. Aims The aims of this work are: (1) to present DMapp; (2) to report the results of two preliminary studies on DMapp; (3) to describe the clinical and experimental potentiality of DMapp. Methods Italian people with the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease or dementia due to Alzheimer's Disease with a Mini-Mental-State-Examination between 24 and 28 (inclusive) were involved in the DMapp development prototype during the Lab Trial (4 subjects) and Filed Trial (5 subjects) of the Memento project. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected to evaluate participants' opinions, the DMapp ability to perform the automatic analysis of the speech and participants' visible emotional state effective. Ad hoc interviews, the Observed Emotion Rating Scale and performance metrics to solve different tasks were used. The relation between cognitive measures (global cognitive measures) and linguistic indexes values was considered using Euclidean distances between the participants. Results Linguistic indexes were calculated and seemed to classify the participants' performance as expected from cognitive measures. The DMapp was appreciated by people with cognitive impairment. Positive emotions were present. Conclusion DMapp seems an interesting approach to monitor dementia symptoms progression and stimulate memory. Possible developments and open questions are discussed.