A bedside application-based assessment of spatial orientation and memory: approaches and lessons learned

Spatial orientation and memory deficits are an often overlooked and potentially powerful early marker for pathological cognitive decline. Pen-and-paper tests for spatial abilities often do not coincide with actual navigational performance due to differences in spatial perspective and scale. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly useful in a clinical setting, for patient monitoring, clinical decision-making, and information management. The same devices have positional information that may be useful for a scale appropriate point-of-care test for spatial ability. We created a test for spatial orientation and memory based on pointing within a single room using the sensors in mobile phone. The test consisted of a baseline pointing condition to which all other conditions were compared, a spatial memory condition with eyes-closed, and two body rotation conditions (real or mental) where spatial updating were assessed. We examined the effectiveness of the sensors from a mobile phone for measuring pointing errors in these conditions in a sample of healthy young individuals. We found that the sensors reliably produced appropriate azimuth and elevation pointing angles for all of the 15 targets presented across multiple participants and days. Within-subject variability was below 6° elevation and 10° azimuth for the control condition. The pointing error and variability increased with task difficulty and correlated with self-report tests of spatial ability. The lessons learned from the first tests are discussed as well as the outlook of this application as a scientific and clinical bedside device. Finally, the next version of the application is introduced as an open source application for further development.