A Desktop Expert System for the Differential Diagnosis of Dementia: An Evaluation Study

Abstract

EVINCE-I is a desktop expert system for the differential diagnosis of dementia, implemented on a personal computer. It is intended to assess the effectiveness of this new technology in modeling a psychiatrist who uses international guidelines for diagnosing dementia. EVINCE-I was tested in diagnosing 19 patients with varying stages of dementia and 10 patients showing other disorders except dementia. EVINCE-I and the human expert were in perfect agreement on the diagnosis of dementia and correlated highly on the diagnosis of dementia of the Alzheimer type and multiple infarct dementia. EVINCE-I thus offers important possibilities as a tool in investigating the data and procedures used by the human expert.