Even something as simple and easily treatable as a urinary tract infection can cause alarming cognitive changes. There are many TREATABLE health conditions that could cause these types of symptoms, which is why it’s so important to see a doctor and find out the true cause of the issue. What the score means is that someone needs to be evaluated for any potential cognitive issues. This is a screening test only and MUST be interpreted by a doctor. No, it absolutely does not mean that someone has Alzheimer’s or dementia. For more information, see How We Make Money. This article wasn’t sponsored and doesn’t contain affiliate links. Sources: MoCA, Wikipedia, Today’s Geriatric Medicine Testing for Dementia: Why the Mini Mental Status Exam Isn’t Enough for Diagnosis.The Mini Mental Status Exam: A Dementia Screening Tool.SAGE Test: 15 Minute At-Home Test for Alzheimer’s.Next Step Find out how the Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE) works After the initial screening, more testing would be needed. They also can’t be used to distinguish between conditions.įor example, you couldn’t use either test to diagnose someone with Alzheimer’s disease versus frontotemporal dementia. At the current threshold of 25/26, one of the 65 people with dementia would score 26 or more on the MoCA and so the diagnosis would be ‘missed’, but 449 people without dementia would score below 26, mandating further workup and (potentially invasive) tests, to exclude dementia. In Table 3, we present data of calculated cut-off scores 1, 1.5 and 2 SD below the mean score. The mean MoCA score for women was 26.1 (SD 2.3) and for men 25.7 (SD 2.4) ( p 0.006). They’re both initial screening tests that are used to determine whether further cognitive testing is needed. Normative scores for the different parts of MoCA stratified according to age and education are provided in Supplementary Table 1. Traumatic brain injury (often from falls)Įven though these are good screening tools for cognitive impairments, neither test was designed to diagnose cognitive conditions.The MoCA has also been shown to be a better screening tool for conditions like: So, if a doctor sees a patient who is questioning their mental functioning, they might give the MoCA test.īut if a patient comes in and is clearly cognitively impaired, a very sensitive test wouldn’t be as necessary since the issues are more obvious. The MoCA is generally better at detecting mild impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease because it’s a more sensitive test and is more challenging. The MoCA looks similar to the MMSE, but the MoCA tests a variety of different cognitive functions and the MMSE focuses mostly on memory and recall. Executive functions – ability to manage cognitive processes.Ability to process and understand visual information about where objects are.The MoCA usually tests these cognitive areas: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a one page, 30 point test that takes about 10 minutes. How the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) works
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