A Comparison of the Czech Version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test with the Mini Mental State Examination in Identifying Cognitive Deficits in Parkinson's Disease
Abstract
Objective: Comparison of two brief screening tests for the detection of cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease. Introduction: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was developed as a screening tool for the identification of cognitive deficits in Alzheimer's disease and its use has been proposed in Parkinson's disease (PD).
Cognitive deficit is common in PD and its early detection improves the prospects for medical intervention. The Czech version of MoCA is freely available, but its validity has not yet been demonstrated.
We therefore compared the sensitivity of MoCA with that of the mini mental state examination (MMSE), currently the representative screening test for the detection of cognitive deficit. Unlike MMSE, MoCA contains subtests of executive functions and sustained attention as well employing more extensive tasks in naming and word recall.
Methods: MMS and MoCA were administered in alternating order to 81 randomly selected PD patients and to 34 age-matched normal controls (NC).