New Test Offers Quicker Way to Screen for Dementia

SEATTLE — A novel, quick, and low-cost dementia screening test could significantly improve early detection of Alzheimer’s disease in primary care settings, according to research presented at the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting.

The test, called qBEANS — short for Quick Behavioral Exam to Advance Neuropsychological Screening — involves patients spooning raw kidney beans into small plastic cups in a specific sequence to assess motor learning, visuospatial memory, and executive function. It requires no technology or wearable sensors, making it accessible and easy to implement.

Previous research has shown qBEANS to be sensitive and specific to Alzheimer’s disease pathology, as well as predictive of cognitive and functional decline, the researchers said.

However, the current version of the test takes around 7 minutes to administer, which is too long for use in primary care, according to study author Sydney Schaefer, PhD, associate professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

“The purpose of this study was to identify the minimum number of trials needed for reliability relative to the original longer version,” said Schaefer.

The study involved 48 participants without dementia, 77% of whom were women, and an average age of 75.4 years.

The researchers found that the shortened version of the qBEANS test takes only about 3.85 minutes on average — nearly 48% faster than the original version — while still maintaining high reliability (intraclass correlation of 0.85).

With its brevity and simplicity, the test could be easily administered by medical assistants during patient check-in, potentially increasing early dementia detection rates in primary care, said Schaefer.

While the shortened qBEANS test shows promise, further research is needed to assess its acceptability in primary care settings.

“The findings also warrant further development of the BEAN as a direct-to-consumer product, given its low cost and ease of administration,” said Schaefer.

However, Carla Perissinotto, MD, MHS, professor in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, cautioned that direct-to-consumer plans “could lead to participants not knowing what to do with the results out of context and without clinical input.”

“I’m not sure that we need to have a new evaluation tool, but instead, greater adoption of known and existing tools,” said Perissinotto, who was not involved in the study.

According to Perissinotto, existing cognitive screening tools Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) are more commonly used to evaluate cognition and are also relatively quick to administer.

“If [qBEANS] is not benchmarked to other standard tools like the MMSE or MoCA, clinicians may have trouble interpreting results,” said Perissinotto.

Study co-authors Schaefer and Jill Love are co-founders and managing members of Neurosessments LLC, which developed the qBEANS test.

Lara Salahi is a freelance journalist living in Boston.