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Moca testing scores3/31/2024 ![]() ![]() Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations. Further research is needed, especially to determine the best score threshold for accurate dementia diagnosis, especially in primary care settings. The authors say that the quality of the studies conducted on this topic wasn’t high enough to strongly recommend using the MoCA test for dementia diagnosis in various healthcare settings. Yet, using this cutoff also led to a significant number of incorrect results, with over 40% of people without dementia being mistakenly identified as having dementia. But other parts, like paying attention and using language, didn’t work as well.Ī 2021 review of seven studies found that, when practitioners used a score of less than 26 as a cutoff, the MoCA correctly detected more than 94% of people with dementia in different situations. The researchers found that some parts of the MoCA, like the executive function section that deals with planning and organization, were good at spotting concerns. This implies that while the MoCA can identify people needing more tests, it’s not ideal for diagnosing cognitive issues conclusively.Ī 2017 study looked at how well the MoCA works for people with Parkinson’s disease. In addition, when these results were compared to the performance of healthy individuals, the MoCA appeared to be more effective than it is in real clinical settings. Yet researchers note that its reliability for diagnosing these problems was limited. The test was able to confirm a typical ability to think and rule out severe issues like dementia. One study from 2020 assessed the MoCA’s effectiveness in detecting cognitive concerns among older adults in an outpatient mental health clinic. It appears to be particularly effective at identifying cognitive changes in individuals with higher education levels or when mild cognitive changes are the main focus of clinical attention.īut its accuracy can be influenced by factors such as the characteristics of the person being tested and the setting in which the test is administered. ![]() Stimmel is a clinical and research neuropsychologist at Einstein and Montefiore Medical Center.The accuracy of the MoCA test may vary depending on the specific context and population being assessed. ![]() Their study published online on January 10 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.ĭr. ![]() They concluded that using lower cut points on the MoCA test may improve the test’s accuracy in identifying cognitive impairment in traditionally underserved, multicultural older individuals. The researchers found that the MoCA test’s published cut off scores may be too high, resulting in significant overidentification of cognitive impairment, particularly in Spanish-speaking patients (an overall false positive rate of 79%). The MoCA test results were compared with the participants’ scores on “gold standard” neuropsychological tests. To find out, Marnina Stimmel, Ph.D., and her colleagues tested the MoCA on a traditionally underserved and multicultural population of 231 Bronx-based older adults with an average age of 73. However, MoCA results may be influenced by educational, language, and cultural factors, so whether the test works well in diverse populations has not been clear. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a commonly used screening test for cognitive impairment in older adults. ![]()
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