P1‐236: The polish version of the montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) is superior to the mini‐mental state examination in the early detection of mild cognitive impairment

The aim of this study was to compare the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test (MoCA) and Mini-Mental State Examination test (MMSE) and to evaluate the usefulness of both tools in the early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The study was conducted in a group of 179 people [60 subjects with MCI, 60 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD) of mild severity and 59 participants in the control group]. All patients included in the study had a general neurological and psychiatric examinations and neuropsychological evaluation using selected tests and tools: MMSE, MoCA, Clinical Dementia Rating Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, subscales of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory. Both MoCA and MMSE distinguished AD (mild to moderate dementia) from controls with comparable accuracy. However, MoCA was significantly more accurate in differentiation of MCI from both controls and mild dementia. The observed differences in accuracy could be attributed to a wider spectrum of neuropsychological domains examined by MoCA in comparison to MMSE. Polish version of MoCA performed better than the MMSE in differentiating of healthy people from those with cognitive deficits in Alzheimer's disease or MCI. MoCA might be particularly recommended for questionable cases with marginally expressed cognitive deficits.