VALIDATION OF THE BRAZILIAN ALTERNATIVE VERSION OF THE MONTREAL ASSESSMENT (MOCA): PILOT STUDY

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a screening tool designed to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The current version used in Brazil, MoCA-BR, did not have a reliable cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese and has structural aws that might lead to a higher rate of false-positives. In previous stages of this study, the Alternative Version of the MoCA-BR was developed, with changes in the sections: Memory and Delayed Recall, Language and Naming. to verify the inuence of cross-cultural Objectives: adaptation on the performance of cognitive tools, and the applicability and internal accuracy of the Alternative Version of the MoCA-BR. a pilot, prospective, monocentric, longitudinal, Methods: and analytical study. Both versions of the test were applied in a randomized and cognitively healthy population, between 18 and 60 years, within a medium interval of 54,56 days (median = 32 days) between the questionnaires. out of 104 part Results: icipants, 70 were included (64.3% female, 40.2 years). The alternative version was superior in the naming domain (p < 0.001), and in the adapted sentence within the language domain (p = 0.003). There were no signicant differences within the delayed recall domain. The alternative version showed good internal consistency, with a Cronbach's alpha coefcient of 0.75. The cut-off point suggested by the study is 27 points, with sensitivity and specicity of 91.3% and 79.2%, respectively. Cultural factors affect the accuracy of cognitive tests, and Conclusions: adaptation is essential for their use in different countries.