Montreal cognitive assessment for detection of patients with vascular cognitive impairment,no dementia

Objective: To evaluate Montreal cognitive assessment(MoCA) and mini-mental state examination(MMSE) in early detection of patients with vascular cognitive impairment,no dementia(VCIND).Methods: One hundred and twenty patients with VCIND and 50 cases with no cognitive impairment(NCI) after stroke were performed laboratory examinations and neuropsychological assessments.All the subjects were divided into NCI group 50 cases,mild VCIND group 44 cases and severe VCIND group 76 cases according to the results of MMSE and MoCA;the scores were compared among the three groups.Results: The MoCA domain subtest scores(visuospatial/executive,attention,language,abstraction,delayed recall and orientation) and the MMSE domain subtest scores(delayed recall and orientation) in the mild VCIND group were significantly lower than those in the NCI group(P<0.05 to P<0.01);all the MoCA domain subtest scores and the MMSE domain subtest score(executive,computation,delayed recall and orientation) in the severe VCIND group were lower than those in the NCI group(P<0.01);the MoCA domain subtest scores(visuospatial/executive,attention,language,delayed recall and orientation) and the MMSE domain subtest score(executive,delayed recall and orientation) in the severe VCIND group were lower than those in the mild VCIND group(P<0.05 to P<0.01).Conclusions: MoCA is superior to MMSE in early detection of VCIND and may help to predict the prognosis.