Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) use in general practice for the early detection of cognitive impairment: a feasibility study.
prospective_cohort · Level II
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39168498.
- Also identified by DOI 10.3399/BJGPO.2024.0039 and PMC identifier 12138001.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
GPs can detect cognitive impairment (CI) at a very early stage, allowing early support for people and their caregivers. The early onset of CI is between 50 years and 60 years. Currently, in France, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) remains the most used screening test, although it has a lower sensitivity and specificity than the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for detecting mild CI, taking an average of 15 minutes to complete. To investigate the feasibility of the MoCA during routine consultations in general practice for the early detection of CI and to determine prevalence of CI in a primary care setting. A quantitative, prospective feasibility study was carried out in real-life working conditions during routine GP consultations in France. GPs performed MoCA on adults aged ≥50 years, without suspected or confirmed CI. Sixty-one GPs performed 221 MoCA with a mean duration of 8 minutes and detected mild neurocognitive impairment in 62% of patients. The MoCA is feasible and easy to perform during routine consultations in general practice by trained and experienced physicians.