George Paul supervised by Dr. Bhaktee Dongaonkar received his Master of Science – Dual Degree in Computer Science & Engineering (LCD). Here’s a summary of his research work on Developing and Validating a Digital Version of the Indian Council of Medical Research-NeuroCognitive Toolbox (ICMR-NCTB)

The Indian Council of Medical Research NeuroCognitive Toolbox (ICMR-NCTB) was developed to support culturally appropriate cognitive assessment across India’s linguistic diversity [7, 5, 9]. Its paper-based form, however, leaves administration dependent on manual timing, handwritten scoring, later transcription, and physical handling of task artifacts. This thesis presents the design, implementation, and initial validation of a tablet-based digital version of the ICMR-NCTB. The work asks whether a usable administrator-facing platform can support the full battery, how individual cognitive tests can be digitized without weakening their clinical intent, and whether scores collected digitally remain comparable to pen-and-paper administration.

The resulting Flutter application supports multilingual instructions, structured score capture, local media storage, spreadsheet export, and selective manual override where trained judgment remains necessary. Digital versions were implemented for Picture Naming, Trail Making, Category and Phonemic Fluency, Verbal Learning, Test des Neuf Images du 93 (TNI-93), Modified Taylor Complex Figure (MTCF), Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test (FAST), Line Bisection, and associated questionnaires. Validation was conducted with 83 adults who completed digital and pen-and-paper sessions in counterbalanced order. The full inferential analysis was restricted to 67 younger adults below 45 years, with a smaller older subgroup reported through baseline descriptive checks. At the composite level in younger adults, the two media showed broad alignment: there was no overall baseline medium-of-testing effect, no meaningful order effect, and a clear practice effect across sessions. At the test level, most subtests behaved comparably across media, while Trail Making Part B and key Verbal Learning outcomes showed stronger sensitivity to testing medium.

July 2026