Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Eye or testing by visual stimulus
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-21
2003-11-18
Marmor, II, Charles (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Eye or testing by visual stimulus
C600S300000, C128S898000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06648834
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for testing mentation of humans, and a mentation test apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to a highly reproducible and reliable mentation test method that is able to sensitively test human mentation without being affected by intelligence, educational carrier and the effects of repeated learning, and a mentation test apparatus.
2. Description of the Background Art
A mentation test method called TMT (Trail-Making-Test) has been used for finding diseases such as cerebrovascular disorder, schizophrenia and dementia. In this method, test subjects are given a task to sequentially line the figures of 1 to 25 randomly distributed on a sheet of A4 paper within a period as short as possible in a manner similar to one stroke drawing. While the time required for a test subject to complete the task, or to gain a score, is recognized to be affected by the intelligence quotient of the subject as well as by aging to some extent, there are different opinions on the effect of the school carrier.
Since the task can be achieved within a short period of time by simultaneously proceeding two sorts of tasks of search of a target and memory of locations of letters and figures other than the target in the TMT method, higher concurrent processing ability between recognition and retention of information (memory), or higher processing ability of the working memory, results in better results.
However, many other functions such as flexibility of mentation, attention span (fatigue), visual search ability and motor ability are required besides the working memory for achieving the task of the TMT method. Accordingly, lower performance of the aged person is conjectured as a result of age-related changes of these factors above.
However, it is impossible in the currently available TMT method to analyze what factors have affected to what extent on the decrease of the score, thereby making it impossible to assess the working memory ability of aged persons and dementia patients.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, one object of the present invention for solving the problems in the conventional art is to provide a mentation test method capable of testing human mentation such as conjecture of brain mentation age, discrimination of initial dementia and prediction of onset thereof as well as diagnosis of onset prediction probability and screening of mentation of the senile dementia patients, decision of the rehabilitation effect on the aftereffects of the cerebrovascular dysfunction, therapeutic effects of medicines and investigation of side effects such as sleepiness, testing of intoxication, testing of peripheral attention visual field, testing of the cerebral dominant hemisphere, testing of various neuropathy and mental disorder such as schizophrenia and cerebrovascular disorder (symptoms and diagnosis, and decision of the effect of rehabilitation and treatment), and check of mental fatigue. Another object of the present invention is to provide a mentation test apparatus capable of executing the method described above.
The mentation test method according to the present invention (referred as a method according to the present invention hereinafter) for attaining the foregoing objects uses a technical method comprising displaying a given number of randomly disposed targets to be pointed in a prescribed order on a screen of a display device, measuring a search response time required for a test subject to search each target by pointing the target in a prescribed order, and calculating the test subject's mentation based on the measured values.
In a method according to the present invention, many normal test subjects are given a visual search task for pointing the targets displayed on the screen of the display device in a prescribed order to measure the search response time for each target. Consequently, the correlation between the age and score can be statistically determined, and brain's mentation age can be conjectured from the statistically determined correlation and score of each test subject.
In a different method according to the present invention, a test subject is given a task in which mnemonic ability of the test subject is reflected on reduction of the search response time, and a task in which mnemonic ability of the test subject is hardly reflected on reduction of the search response time to measure the search response time for each target. Consequently, more accurate correlation between the age and score can be statistically determined, and the brain's mentation age can be more accurately conjectured from the statistically determined correlation and score of each test subject.
In a different method according to the present invention, the test subject is given a task in which mnemonic ability of the test subject is reflected on reduction of the search response time, and a task in which mnemonic ability of the test subject is hardly reflected on reduction of the search response time to measure the search response time for each target. Consequently, processing ability of the working memory can be analyzed by calculating contraction rate of the search response time arising from the working memory.
Prediction probability of early onset of dementia or onset of dementia can be diagnosed by statistically determining the contraction rate of the search response time arising from the working memory of the normal subjects and dementia patients, and by comparing the statistically determined contraction rate of the search response time arising from the working memory with that of each test subject.
When the test subject is given a task in which mnemonic ability of the test subject is hardly reflected on reduction of the search response time in the method according to the present invention, and when the search response time is measured for each target, then the search response time for the late turns of search tends to be prolonged, besides it is further elongated as the test subject is aged.
Delay of this search time is thought to arise from fatigues, and the causes of the fatigues include intoxication, effects of medicines, side effects of medicines, asthenopia and mental fatigue.
Therefore, the correlation between the cause and achievement is statistically determined using, for example, age as a parameter for every causes or for every time when two or more of these causes compete to one another in the present invention. It is then made possible to diagnose the extents of intoxication, effects of medicines, side effects of medicines, asthenopia and mental fatigue by comparing the correlation with the score of each test subject.
The other causes of arising delay of the search response include constriction of peripheral attention visual field and loss of exercise function. The extents of constriction of peripheral attention visual field and loss of exercise function can be also diagnosed by collecting statistical data by the same method as described above, and by comparing the statistical data with the test score of each test subject.
The method according to the present invention will be described in more detail hereinafter.
While the display device comprising a screen for displaying targets is not particularly restricted so long as the display device is able to switch the display image on the screen for every responses of the test subject, it is preferable that the display device can quickly switch the screen and is excellent in the degree of freedom for setting image contents.
For example, a display device like a paper picture show may be employed, whereby the device comprises a roll paper for sequentially and continuously printing the images that change for every response of the test subject, and the roll paper is wound from one end to the other end for every screen when the test subject show a correct response. However, it is preferable to use a display device that can display the targets on the screen by electronic control that can rapidly switch the screen and is excellent in the de
Kajimoto Osami
Takahashi Takeo
Jordan and Hamburg LLP
Marmor II Charles
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