Feasibility study of the Montreal cognitive assessment in detecting subcortcial vascular cognitive impairment-no dementia / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo explore feasibility study of the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) in detecting subcortcial vascular cognitive impairment-no dementia(VaCIND-S).MethodsSeventy-five Chinese Han were assessed by the MoCA and MMSE.40 met criteria for VaCIND -S and 35 were considered cognitively normal.ROC curve analyses were performed to determine optimal sensitivity and specificity.ResultsNo differences were found between groups on age,gender,education degrees.According to their MoCA scores,cognitive impairments including memory,visuospatial,executive function,attention,language,and orientation sub-scores in VaCIND-S ( (0.43 ± 1.01),(2.21 ± 1.19),(2.11 ± 1.13),(4.66 ± 1.48),(4.42 ±1.31),(4.86 ± 1.12)) significantly decreased compared with those in controls( (2.93 ± 1.36),(3.29 ± 1.06),(3.53 ±0.93),(5.94 ±0.24),(5.44 ± 0.71 ),(5.80 ± 0.48 ) ) (P ＜ 0.05 ).The MMSE scale was insensitive to cognitive impairment as compared with MoCA scale.Using cut-off score of 23.5,the MoCA exhibited excellent sensitivity (0.971 ) and specificity (0.789).ConclusionMoCA is a more sensitive instrument than the MMSE for the detection of VaCIND-S and warrants further investigation regarding its applicability in large and varying ethnic population.