Unveiling peripheral neuropathy and cognitive dysfunction in diabetes: an observational and proof-of-concept study with video games and sensor-equipped insoles

Background Proactive screening for cognitive dysfunction (CD) and peripheral neuropathy (PNP) in elderly patients with diabetes mellitus is essential for early intervention, yet clinical examination is time-consuming and prone to bias. Objective We aimed to investigate PNP and CD in a diabetes cohort and explore the possibility of identifying key features linked with the respective conditions by machine learning algorithms applied to data sets obtained in playful games controlled by sensor-equipped insoles. Methods In a cohort of patients diagnosed with diabetes (n=261) aged over 50 years PNP and CD were diagnosed based on complete physical examination (neuropathy symptom and disability scores, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment). In an observational and proof-of-concept study patients performed a 15 min lasting gaming session encompassing tutorials and four video games with 5,244 predefined features. The steering of video games was solely achieved by modulating plantar pressure values, which were measured by sensor-equipped insoles in real-time. Data sets were used to identify key features indicating game performance with correlation regarding CD and PNP findings. Thereby, machine learning models (e.g. gradient boosting and lasso and elastic-net regularized generalized linear models) were set up to distinguish patients in the different groups. Results PNP was diagnosed in 59% (n=153), CD in 34% (n=89) of participants, and 23% (n=61) suffered from both conditions. Multivariable regression analyses suggested that PNP was positively associated with CD in patients with diabetes (adjusted odds ratio = 1.95; 95% confidence interval: 1.03-3.76; P =0.04). Predictive game features were identified that significantly correlated with CD (n=59), PNP (n=40), or both (n=59). These features allowed to set up classification models that were enriched by individual risk profiles (i.e. gender, age, weight, BMI, diabetes type, and diabetes duration). The obtained models yielded good predictive performance with the area under the receiver-operating-characteristic curves reaching 0.95 for CD without PNP, 0.83 for PNP without CD, and 0.84 for CD and PNP combined. Conclusions The video game-based assessment was able to categorize patients with CD and/or PNP with high accuracy. Future studies with larger cohorts are needed to validate these results and potentially enhance the discriminative power of video games.