What is it about?
The early detection of neurocognitive disorders, especially when mild, is a key issue of health care systems including the Italian Dementia National Plan. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) i.e., the reference screening tool for dementia in Italian Memory Clinics, has low sensitivity in detecting Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or mild dementia. The availability of 10-minute screening test sensitive to MCI and mild dementia, as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), is relevant in the field. The study presents the validity and reliability data for the Italian version of MoCA 7.1 versus MMSE that were administered to patients with MCI and dementia and to healthy older adults. The results showed that MoCA 7.1 has a discriminant power greater than MMSE in the diagnosis of MCI and dementia in the Italian population.
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Why is it important?
The most relevant result of the study consists in the timely detection of cognitive impairment to allow professionals and caregivers to administrate timely preventive, pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions with better outcomes with respect to more advanced stages of dementia.
Perspectives
The routinely administration of both MMSE and MoCA 7.1 is recommended to avoid false negatives in the normal score range of MMSE especially in people with elevated premorbid intelligence. The elderly achieving normal scores of MoCA may be reasonably confident to maintain a healthy cognition longer than reporting normal scores of the MMSE.
Alessandro Pirani
Alzheimer’s Association “Francesco Mazzuca”
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: MoCA 7.1: Multicenter Validation of the First Italian Version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Journal of Alzheimer s Disease Reports, August 2022, IOS Press,
DOI: 10.3233/adr-210053.
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