Reliability and Minimal Detectable Change for a Smartphone-Based Motor-Cognitive Assessment: Implications for...

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Sports Medicine
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Assessing gait and cognitive function is crucial for adolescent athletes.
• Smartphone technology offers a potential platform for accessible and automated assessments.
• Reliability and minimal detectable change data are needed for smartphone-based tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the reliability and minimal detectable change of a smartphone-based assessment.
• To evaluate single- and dual-task gait and cognitive performance.
• To assess consistency over a one-month period in uninjured adolescent athletes.

Main Methods:

• 17 uninjured adolescent athletes completed smartphone-based cognitive and gait tasks.
• Tasks included single-task cognitive, single-task gait, and dual-task cognitive-gait conditions.
• Assessments were repeated after 4 weeks, using an automated smartphone application.

Main Results:

• Gait speed showed high consistency between sessions in both single-task (r=.89) and dual-task (r=.88) conditions.
• Cognitive response accuracy was moderately consistent in single-task (r=.52) and dual-task (r=.81) conditions.
• Automated dual-task motor-cognitive outcomes were consistent over a one-month period.

Conclusions:

• Smartphone-based assessments demonstrate good reliability for motor-cognitive dual-task performance in adolescents.
• The findings support the use of smartphone evaluations for tracking changes over time.
• Further research is needed to validate this assessment in sport-related concussion settings.