Development of computerized Kana Pick-out Test for the neuropsychological examination.

The Kana Pick-out Test, which was developed in Japan and done with paper and pencil, is said to be suitable for inspecting higher-order brain function and to be a good method for screening persons with mild or slight dementia. We have developed a computerized version of the Kana Pick-out Test, which runs on a stand-alone computer, intended to be utilized for mass screening and self-administration. The program was developed with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 and runs under the Windows operating system on any IBM PC compatible computer. In this study, all subjects could use the system by interacting with the computer and it was found that the system seemed to have the capability of detecting cognitive status equal to the paper-based Kana Pick-out Test. Besides this, we developed a network-based Kana Pick-out game software which was intended to attract user's notice. The game program was written in JAVA language and runs on a web-browser supporting JAVA on any operating system. The program, a so called applet, is located on our web site (http://environ.med.tottori-u.ac.jp) and anyone can use the applet by accessing our homepage.