People living with younger onset neurocognitive disorders (YOND) experience significant delays in receiving an accurate diagnosis. Although neuropsychological assessment can help assist in a timely diagnosis of YOND, several barriers limit the accessibility of these services. Utilising teleneuropsychology may assist with the service access gap. This study aimed to investigate whether similar results were found on neuropsychological tests administered using videoconference and in person in a sample of people living with YOND.

Participants with a diagnosis of YOND were recruited from the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) Neuropsychiatry inpatient ward and outpatient clinic, and through community advertising. A randomised counterbalanced cross-over design was used where participants completed 14 tests, across two administration sessions: one in person and one using videoconference. There was a two-week interim between the administration sessions. The videoconference sessions were set up across two laptops using the Healthdirect Video Call platform and Q-Global. Repeated measures t-tests, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Bland-Altman plots were calculated to compare results across the test administration sessions.

Thirty participants (Mage = 60.23, SD = 7.05) completed both sessions. Huntington's disease was the most common YOND diagnosis (n = 8), followed by Alzheimer's disease (n = 6), mild cognitive impairment (n = 6) and frontotemporal dementia (n = 4). Preliminary results from the current study indicate no statistically significant differences, and small effect sizes, between the in-person or videoconference sessions. ICC estimates range from .69 to .97 across neuropsychological tests.

This study provides preliminary evidence that performances are comparable between in-person and videoconferencemediated assessments for most neuropsychological tasks evaluated in people living with YOND. Should further research confirm these preliminary results, findings will support the provision of teleneuropsychology to address the current service gaps experienced by people with YOND.