A Preliminary Application Of The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Chinese Version

ObjectiveTo investigate the sensitivity and validity of the Montreal cognitive assessment(MoCA) Chinese version as a cognitive screening tool.MethodsTotally 98 subjects with chief complaints of cognitive impairment were recruited from the outpatient clinic of Department of Neurology,Peking Union Medical College Hospital from December 2007 to November 2010. Step by step neuropsychological assessment were used. Routine srceening batteries including MMSE and MoCA and detailed neuropsychological assessment were conducted. They were divided into three groups depending on their performance in neuropsychological tests:the normal control group (n= 32); cognitive impairment group(n= 24); dementia group (n= 42). To assess the internal consistencies of MoCA, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated.We determined concurrent validity using the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the MoCA and the MMSE scores.We used the receiver-operator curves (ROC) to analysis the sensitivity and specificity of the MoCA.ResultsThe Cronbach’s alpha of MoCA as an index of internal consistency was 0.858.The MoCA score was highly correlated with MMSE(r=0.911,P<0.001).The area under receiver-operator curves (AUC) for predicting the cognitive impairment group by the MoCA was 0.773 (0.651,0.896). The corresponding value for MMSE was 0.646 (0.494,0.798).Using a cut-off point of 26, the sensitivity and specificity of MoCA were 79.2%,62.5% respectively.ConclusionThe MoCA could be a better cognitive test for screening cognitive impairment than MMSE.