Discriminative Power of Montreal Cognitive Assessment

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the accuracy of MoCA's subitems by comparing healthy elderly with Mild Cognitive Impaired and Alzheimer´s disease patients with more than four years of schooling. 136 elderly, with 39 normal controls, 52 AD patients and 45 MCI treated at the Institute of Geriatrics and Gerontology were studied by means of Mini-Mental State Examination, Cambridge Cognitive Examination, Clock Drawing Test, Verbal Fluency test, Geriatric Depression Scale and Pfeffer Functional Activities Questionnaire. The results obtained by means of ROC curve showed that MoCA is a good screening test to differentiate elderly with Alzheimer's disease from mild cognitive impaired ones with 82.2% sensitivity and 92.3% specificity. Also, we perform an MANOVA and the results suggest significant differences between the three studied groups. We concluded that MoCA is a good screening instrument to assess mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer´s disease in elderly with more than 4 years of schooling.