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Abstract
The comparative ability of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and MMSE to detect mild cognitive difficulties was investigated in 107 older adults. The sensitivity of the MoCA to detect cognitive impairment with a cutoff score of <26 was investigated, as compared to the MMSE across all scores, and at a cutoff of ≥27. Performance on MoCA subtests was compared at these MMSE cutoffs to determine profiles of early cognitive difficulties. The MoCA detected cognitive impairment not detected by the MMSE in a high proportion of participants, and this impairment was evident across various subtests. The MoCA appears to be a sensitive screening test for detection of early cognitive impairment.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank all the OPTIMA participants who contributed to this study, as well as the OPTIMA research nurses, headed by Nursing Administrator Sharon Christie, and neuropsychologists Samrah Ahmed and Erin Drazich for administering the MoCA and MMSE. We also thank Sarah Pendlebury for sharing some concepts for this study. Funding was provided by the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust, the Sir Stewart Halley Trust, and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford. Contributions of authors: Arwen Markwick performed participant assessments, did the data analyses, and wrote the paper, Giovanna Zamboni was responsible for helping with recruitment and providing some of the MoCA and MMSE data from a subset of participants, and Celeste de Jager performed participant assessments and helped to write and edit the paper and advise on the analysis of the data.