An artificial neural network to classify healthy aging in elderly Brazilians

Abstract

Aging in Brazil, especially in the Amazon, is a complex and irregular process. Something is happening here that cannot be explained simply due to social inequalities. The objective of this study was to present the development of an artificial neural network and the stages of training, validation and testing for the classification of healthy aging among elderly Brazilians. We constructed a protocol for rapid diagnosis and health screening for the elderly. The form was developed offline in Microsoft Excel. Macros (routines capable of performing pre-programmed tasks) were created using Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language. In the analysis of the confusion matrix, good accuracy were obtained in all stages, training (61.5%), validation (60.0%) and test (80.0%), which indicates that the network learned through the inputs and outputs initially defined and during the sample divisions performed for testing and validation. In the test stage, a ROC curve was obtained with better true positive rates and lower false positive rates, being close to the Y axis (left side), thus indicating better results. We conducted a pilot study with thirty-six community active elderlies from a city in Eastern Amazonia, Brazil. This study was divided into four parts: data collection, data pre-processing, training of an artificial neural network and evaluation methods.