Staying on the digitalized trail
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Staying on the digitalized trail Markus Samuel Hannukkala1 · Kasperi Mikkonen1 · Elmeri Laitinen1 · Timo Tuononen2 Received: 6 March 2020 / Accepted: 4 April 2020 © IUPESM and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Digitalization has yet to arrive in the field of clinical neuropsychology. Arguments both in favor and against have been frequently seen in scientific publications. The purpose of this article is to compare a digital version of the Trail Making Test (TMT), a common assessment tool of a clinical neuropsychologist, to a conventional paper version. An empirical study was conducted with a counterbalanced within-subject design. Voluntary participants (n=53) conducted two different versions (paper, tablet) of TMT in the library of medical sciences of the University of Helsinki. Significant differences in completion times between TMT variants were observed in TMT part A (F(1 , 106.591) = 7.661, p = .008). No significant differences were found from part B (F(1 , 60.397) = .980, p = .327). Results of this study are in favor of further research of the digitalized version of TMT. This study indicates that it is possible and fruitful to digitalize traditional neuropsychological methods. Keywords Neuropsychology · Trail making test · Assessment · Digitalization
1 Introduction The term ‘digitalization’ has been, for many years now, at the center of transforming existing solutions and services to meet current standards and expectations. Digitalization is often defined as usage of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new value-producing opportunities [1]. It is still considered to be one of the most important developments in the modern world [2]. Scalable technology changes the world in every field, transforming human work and freeing up resources. It is also an essential part of the modern healthcare system, offering new ways for professionals to assess different health issues and to
Markus Samuel Hannukkala
[email protected] Kasperi Mikkonen [email protected] Elmeri Laitinen [email protected] Timo Tuononen [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
2
Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
provide accessible and effective treatment options [3, 4]. Modern technology also enables excellent care on a global scale in the form of telemedicine [5]. In the context of neuropsychology and psychology in general, digitalization can be understood as harnessing technology in order to enhance assessment methods and rehabilitation/treatment options. Besides creating new ways of treating and assessing patients, technology allows the digitalization of traditional testing instruments. Computerized neuropsychological tests have been successfully implemented, for example, in the assessment of cognitive function of patients with brain injury [6]. The idea of using computers in neuropsychological assessment is not new. In fact, already in the 1980s neuropsy
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