# MyCog - Rapid detection of cognitive impairment in everyday clinical settings

> **NIH NIH UH3** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $1,263,614

## Abstract

Cognitive impairment (CI) and dementia are significant public health burdens that can have profound social
and emotional effects on older adults. Early detection of CI is imperative in order to identify potentially
treatable underlying causal conditions, and in cases where cure is not possible, to provide supportive services
to minimize the effects of CI. While primary care and other clinical settings are ideal places for identifying CI, it
frequently goes undetected. Available screening tools may be unsuitable for implementation in such settings
because of their length, cost, or need for specialized equipment or highly trained administrators. Our project,
MyCog: Rapid detection of cognitive impairment in everyday clinical settings, will create a brief, readily
available, standard set of CI screening measures applicable for use in diverse settings and with diverse
populations. Comprised of two cognitive measures drawn from the NIH Toolbox for Assessment of
Neurological and Behavioral Function® and the Everyday Cognition self- and informant-report measures and
implemented as a downloadable app, MyCog will be validated in a large sample of older adults (ages 65+)
enrolled in “LitCog III: Health Literacy and Cognitive Function among Older Adults”. Field testing MyCog
within LitCog III will allow validation in multiple clinical workflows and in African-Americans, a health disparities
population. Our proposed project will 1) Create a standalone MyCog App using existing NIHTB cognition tests
and Everyday Cognition self-/proxy report measures that will report screening results as either “No CI
detected”, or `CI detected” and provide follow-up recommendations and guidelines for each outcome; 2)
Validate MyCog (UH3 Phase) in primary care settings and determine its sensitivity in detecting early indicators
of CI using an existing cohort (LitCog III) of well-characterized, ethnically and racially diverse adults ages 65-
85; 3) Evaluate the success of MyCog clinical implementation in primary care settings; 4) Optimize MyCog
for use in clinical settings by adjusting scoring algorithms to maximize efficiency and incorporating features
that facilitate clinical integration; and 5) if selected to do so, coordinate consortium-wide activities.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10001644
- **Project number:** 5UH3NS105562-04
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** RICHARD GERSHON
- **Activity code:** UH3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,263,614
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-25 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10001644

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10001644, MyCog - Rapid detection of cognitive impairment in everyday clinical settings (5UH3NS105562-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10001644. Licensed CC0.

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