Key advantages
The NIHTB-CB was developed as part of the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research initiative and commissioned by 16 NIH Institutes to provide brief, efficient assessment measures of cognitive function.
The battery has been validated in healthy individuals and tested in other populations with neurologic disorders, including patients who have suffered stroke and traumatic brain injury.
Ms. Manglani noted that the NIHTB-CB had key advantages over other tests. “First, it is a 30-minute iPad-based battery, which is shorter than most cognitive batteries available, and one of the few that is completely computerized. In addition, it automatically scores performance and yields a report with both composite scores and scores for each subtest,” she said.
In addition, said Ms. Manglani, “the NIH toolbox has a large validation sample of individuals between 8-85 years of age and provides normative scores that account for age, gender, education, and race/ethnicity, which allows individuals’ performances to be compared with their peers.”
The findings underscore that with further validation, the battery could have an important role in MS, she added.
“The NIH Toolbox needs to be tested in all subtypes of MS, with a full range of disease severity, and in MS clinics to gauge the clinical feasibility. Larger samples and repeated assessments are also needed to assess the test-retest reliability,” she said.
The study had no specific funding. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.