Taking the Creyos Assessment: How to Prepare and What to Expect

If you have been asked to take a Creyos assessment, this guide walks you through it from the email to the results review. Creyos is a set of short, game-like computer tasks that measure memory, attention, reasoning and verbal skills against people your age; the full Creyos guide explains the science. Nothing here requires studying — you cannot practice for it, and you should not try. What helps is a good setup, a reasonable night’s sleep and knowing what to expect.

Looking for the Creyos login?

Creyos says remote links expire after 45 days, so a link from months ago will not work. If yours has expired, the practice can send a new one. Creyos does not offer a consumer self-test, so the only way in is through a clinician.

At home or in the office

Creyos can be taken in a clinic or remotely through a link. If you are a Willow & Stone patient, whether you take it at home or in the Arlington office is something to ask our team when you book, and the instructions you receive will say which applies. If you take it in the office, we provide the computer and the quiet room, and most of this guide becomes our job rather than yours.

The rest of this page assumes you are taking it at home. If you are also preparing for your first appointment, our guide on how to prepare for a psychiatric evaluation covers paperwork, medication lists and questions to bring.

Your device and browser

Creyos’s help center recommends:

• A laptop or desktop computer. A wired mouse or keyboard is preferred over a trackpad or wireless mouse.
• Or a tablet with a screen of 8 inches or larger.
• Not a phone: Creyos says mobile phones are not recommended at this time.

Before you start, plug in the laptop or charge the tablet, update the browser, close other tabs and apps, and turn off notifications. A video call or a large download running in the background can make tasks lag. If you share Wi-Fi with a busy household, start at a quieter time.

Setting up the room

The tasks are timed or demand steady focus, so small distractions show up in the scores. Aim for:

• A room with a door you can close, and a sign on it if needed.
• Your phone in another room or face down on silent.
• Good lighting without glare on the screen.
• Glasses or contact lenses if you normally use them for screens; hearing aids if you use them.
• A comfortable chair at a desk or table, not the couch.
• Water nearby and a bathroom break before you begin.

Creyos allows a support person, such as a parent or spouse, to be present at home. That person can help with the technology and keep the room quiet, but should not help with answers, give hints or comment on how it is going. For a child or teen, a parent nearby but out of the line of sight usually works best.

The day before and the morning of

Sleep matters. In a study of more than 10,000 people who took these same 12 online tasks, those who reported usually sleeping much less (or more) than 7–8 hours did worse on reasoning and verbal tasks, though not on short-term memory, and sleeping a bit more than usual the night before testing was linked with better scores. A reasonable night’s sleep gives you the fairest picture. If you slept badly, it is fine to reschedule a remote session or to tell your clinician; a poor night is useful context, not a failure.

• Eat as you normally would; do not take the assessment hungry.
• Avoid alcohol and recreational substances beforehand.
• Pick a time of day when you are usually alert.

Medication and caffeine are questions for your clinician, not for a website. Whether to take your usual medication that morning and whether to have your normal coffee depends on why you are being assessed: sometimes the goal is to see you as you usually are, sometimes not. Ask our team when you book, and never stop, skip or change a prescribed medication on your own to prepare for a test.

During the assessment

Each task starts with a short explanation and usually a practice round, then the scored part. Most take about 2–3 minutes, and Creyos says the full 12-task battery takes about 40 minutes; a shorter set will take less. Some tasks have a fixed time limit of 90 seconds or 3 minutes; others are untimed. You will notice the difficulty change as you go — that is by design, and nobody is expected to get everything right.

A few things that help

• Read the instructions fully; a misunderstood rule costs more than a slow start.
• Work at a steady pace. Speed matters on some tasks, accuracy on others; the instructions tell you which.
• Do not go back and retake tasks or look things up.
• If the instructions are not in your preferred language, Creyos offers English, Spanish and French; ask the practice before you start.

If you want to know what each task looks like before you begin, our task-by-task guide describes them without giving anything away that would affect your score.

Breaks, interruptions and accessibility

Life happens: a doorbell, a crying toddler, a dropped connection. Take a short break between tasks if you need one rather than in the middle of a task. If something interrupts you during a task, finish as best you can and note it down. The Creyos report includes validity indicators that flag results outside the range almost all people score in, and your clinician will want to know about interruptions when reading them.

Some conditions affect how the tasks feel: color vision differences, tremor or arthritis that makes a mouse hard to use, reading difficulties, or a first language other than English. Tell the practice about these before the assessment rather than after. They may change which tasks are used or how the scores are read. They are not a reason to push through quietly.

After you finish

When you complete the last task, the results go to your clinician’s account; you will not see a score screen at the end. The report shows standard scores, where 100 is average for your age and 15 points is one standard deviation, plus validity flags. On a later retest it can also show a change indicator, though scores are normed to first attempts, so some improvement from familiarity is expected.

When Dr. Stacey Forbes reviews the results with you after you finish — in your evaluation, at a follow-up, or by video — is confirmed when you book. To get more from that conversation, read how to read Creyos results beforehand, and if you are curious whether and when it might be repeated, see Creyos retesting. If your visits are by video, our online evaluation page covers how those sessions run.

One last reminder of what the scores are: Creyos is registered and listed with the FDA as a Class II, 510(k)-exempt computerized cognitive assessment aid; it is not FDA-cleared or approved and does not diagnose any condition. Your results are one piece of information Dr. Forbes weighs with everything else you tell her.

Common Questions

Sources & Further Reading

• Creyos Help Center — Patient FAQ (duration, link expiry)
• Creyos Help Center — Device recommendations
• Creyos — ADHD assessment protocol (remote or in-clinic FAQ)
• Creyos Help Center — Available languages
• Creyos — Report Interpretation Guide (PDF)
• Wild CJ et al. Dissociable effects of self-reported daily sleep duration on high-level cognitive abilities. Sleep, 2018 (PubMed 30212878)
• eCFR — 21 CFR 882.1470, Computerized cognitive assessment aid

This article is general education, not a diagnosis or advice for your situation. Creyos results support, and never replace, a clinical evaluation; only a clinician who has evaluated you can diagnose a condition or recommend treatment. Do not start, stop, or change a medication without talking to the clinician who prescribes it.