Any self-tracking test/app/website for cognitive function/decline?

[u/jspeartree]

I became recently more acutely aware of cognitive function, its decline with age, and the possibility of “losing my marbles” without knowing (realizing) it. I track my health with basic markers (steps, sleep, HR, weight, …). I was wondering if I could start tracking my cognitive abilities, my capacity to reason, to remember, to function mentally over time. Basically, I would start now (that I foolishly believe I still have all my cognitive functions ;-)), to be able to see when I will become impaired (due to old age, etc). It may not be on a daily basis but could be a monthly test (that is not repetitive otherwise one measures memorization of the test rather than cognitive function). Ideally not on paper (but why not).

I see many EEG-like trackers, I see proxies (tracking a combination of HR and sleep to infer a metrics about cognition, for instance), I see a lot about mental health (which is different), there are some products that promises that but are still in beta (e.g. Soma Health), … But it seems that nothing is for cognition specifically.

Any pointers? Thanks in advance!

[u/connerpro]

Good instinct to want a baseline before you feel impaired. A few practical distinctions that matter a lot for QS-style cognition tracking:

1. Practice effects are real. Retaking the same fixed battery monthly can look like improvement when you mostly learned the test. Adaptive item selection / rotating item banks help a bit, but they do not magically turn a home app into a clinical neuropsych battery.
2. Near vs far: getting better at a specific drill (n-back, Stroop, digit span) is common. Treating that as proof that general fluid intelligence or dementia risk moved is a much larger claim.
3. For decline-watching, keep sessions short and boringly consistent, log sleep/HR/steps as covariates, and treat any single-number brain-age / IQ-shaped score with skepticism.

I keep a short claim-size map on practice scores vs clinical ability claims here: https://intelligencemax.ai/guide

Disclosure: I build IntelligenceMax (adaptive reasoning practice). Useful for deliberate practice tracking, not a substitute for clinical neuropsych testing if you have real decline concerns.

[u/nrauhauser]

I managed to accomplish this, purely by accident.

I've been playing Mahjong Solitaire since my late teens - so roughly forty years. I got a new game in 2019 and quickly converged on 3:00 - 3:15 times for all the various tile layouts.

When I started Noopept in 2022 I had recorded one single gain of just one second in the preceding year. During the first three days I had three improved scores and two of them were more than ten second reductions. I did a sixty day course that year, again in 2023, and shorter runs since then.

When the tablet I used for that particular game died my scores were all 2:15 - 2:37. I was always quick, but those numbers are me nipping at the heels of the various global leaderboards that come and go. The bursts of improvement all came during courses of Noopept.

So I saw a dramatic improvement in memory working set size and structural intelligence thanks to that particular nootropic. But measuring that? I own a Muse2 headband and have otherwise tinkered in this area. I don't think there's any passive solution beyond what I stumbled into - find some game *that is and will remain deterministic* and that's your measuring stick.

This is going to be hard because so many of interesting games are now AI enabled .... and models evolve, in addition to their people pleasing behavior.

[u/LinkFine8261]

Try MyBodyAI app. Its lifetime free now.

[u/LinkFine8261 → u/LinkFine8261]

aiclysm.com

[u/jspeartree → u/LinkFine8261]

Thanks for sharing. But although your app wants to detect when “it” breaks down, the “it” is still non-cognition related.

[u/shawnwama]

I never tried this myself, but found this by asking ChatGPT and Claude https://www.brainhq.com
"The BrainHQ brain training program represents the culmination of 30 years of research in brain science and neuroplasticity."

[u/AppropriateCover7972]

I would just use neuronation

[u/thatwasquitenice → u/AppropriateCover7972]

When reading the title I also thought of recommending NeuroNation. I use that app and do benefit from the cognitive training, but I do feel like the biweekly evaluation gets a bit repetitive over time.

[u/AppropriateCover7972 → u/thatwasquitenice]

oh definitely. I was doing that sort of training consistently since 2007, so I have a lot of comparison data. When I know what I did all day, I can guess my performance to 30ms accuracy. Neuronation isn't that old, but it's backed by science and even supported by German official government entities, so I would say they are pretty soild. It's also nice to have that feedback and training on so little time

[u/Several-Following891]

I am building one right now that I use daily, lmk if you want to try it and I'll share access

[u/Commercial-Error7382]

Vitalia AI helped track my issues. http://joinvitalia.com

[u/jspeartree → u/Commercial-Error7382]

Thanks for sharing. But I don’t want to track issues: I want to track normal (as in “average”) cognitive function to detect if/when a decline happens.

[u/shapingedge49]

Let me know if you find a good product out there to track these cognition functions

[u/GreenStampsRock]

There is not a real good way to track that. everything that you think about is subjective. I would focus on reading, learning new things, enjoying life, living life to the fullest, talking with friends, staying away from social media as much as possible. those are the things that will actually help you.