Healthcare Tech Outlook: Specials Magazine

Sarah, a 54-year-old woman, sits across from her physician for her annual health check-up. Her vitals look good, but privately, she worries about forgetting bills, missing appointments, and a name that’s slow to surface. With the waiting room full and the doctor’s schedule packed, cognitive screening is postponed. She says nothing, unsure whether these small lapses might be the earliest signs of dementia. This is a pattern seen far too often in clinics nationwide. People show the first signs of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a prodromal stage where decline is evident, but daily life still feels manageable. Yet research shows that up to 80 percent of these cases go undetected in routine practice because current tools rely on lengthy interviews and outdated paper-and-pencil tests. What has been missing is a practical, patient-friendly tool that makes early detection possible—until now. Cognivue, the first FDA-cleared digital cognitive assessment, ends that cycle of missed detection. It is pioneering the future of cognitive health as the only digital biomarker capable of detecting amyloid presence in the brain noninvasively, without blood tests or expensive procedures, through a self-guided assessment. Cognivue also detects impairment without amyloid, enabling exploration and intervention for symptoms before disease onset through precision testing. “We’re here to break down systemic barriers such as patient reluctance, limited clinician time, and lack of formal policy guidance, and ultimately transform brain health screening into a routine, essential standard of care, supported by ongoing innovation and trusted by clinicians, patients, and families alike,” says James E. Galvin, MD, MPH, chief scientific officer, driving the breakthrough in cognitive care at Cognivue. The Devices Behind the Science At its core, the company delivers this science through two precision cognitive assessment devices designed based on adaptive psychophysics: Cognivue Clarity^® and Cognivue Thrive^®. While patients are in allied health environments such as pharmacies, audiology clinics, or optometry practices, Cognivue Thrive^® serves as a rapid five-minute screening tool to detect potential cognitive impairment. If the screening shows no significant concerns, patients continue with routine care; but if it indicates possible issues, they are referred to their Primary Care Physician for further evaluation. While patients are in primary care or other specialty environments, Cognivue Clarity^® serves as a more advanced, ten-minute, ten-test platform which provides additional insight alongside a full neurological exam, offering deeper data points, richer reporting, and broader diagnostic support that help physicians arrive at more accurate differential diagnoses. Cognivue Clarity^® follows a simple test design where instead of static questions, it continuously adjusts the difficulty in real time based on the individual’s performance. If a person is performing well, the tasks become progressively harder until they can no longer complete them, presenting an accurate measure of their performance threshold.