Screening dementia and predicting high dementia risk groups using machine learning

Abstract

New technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, big data, and cloud computing have changed the overall society and economy, and the medical field particularly has tried to combine traditional examination methods and new technologies. The most remarkable field in medical research is the technology of predicting high dementia risk group using big data and artificial intelligence. This review introduces: (1) the definition, main concepts, and classification of machine learning and overall distinction of it from traditional statistical analysis models; and (2) the latest studies in mental science to detect dementia and predict high-risk groups in order to help competent researchers who are challenging medical artificial intelligence in the field of psychiatry. As a result of reviewing 4 studies that used machine learning to discriminate high-risk groups of dementia, various machine learning algorithms such as boosting model, artificial neural network, and random forest were used for predicting dementia. The development of machine learning algorithms will change primary care by applying advanced machine learning algorithms to detect high dementia risk groups in the future.

Keywords: Dementia; Artificial intelligence; Clinical decision support system; Machine learning; Mild cognitive impairment

Core Tip: The predictive performance of machine learning techniques varies among studies because of the difference in machine data (especially, Y variables) imbalance, characteristics of features included in the model, and measurement methods of outcome variables. Therefore, further studies are continuously needed to check the predictive performance of each algorithm because, although some studies have proven that the performance of a specific machine learning algorithm is excellent, the results cannot be generalized for all types of data.