SCOPA-cognition cutoff value for detection of Parkinson's disease dementia

The SCOPA-Cognition is a reliable and valid test to evaluate cognitive functioning in Parkinson's disease and is widely used in clinical and research settings. Recently, the Movement Disorder Society introduced criteria for Parkinson's disease dementia. The objective of the present study was to use these criteria to determine SCOPA-Cognition cutoffs for maximum accuracy, screening, and diagnosing of Parkinson's disease dementia. A total of 282 patients with Parkinson's disease were assessed with the SCOPA-Cognition and the Movement Disorder Society's Parkinson's disease dementia criteria. From the 275 patients with a complete assessment of the dementia criteria, 12% (n = 32) fulfilled the criteria. Data from 268 patients with complete assessments of both the dementia criteria and the SCOPA-Cognition were used to determine cutoffs for maximum accuracy, screening, and diagnosing of Parkinson's disease dementia. The area under the curve was 0.91 (95% confidence interval, 0.85-0.97), showing a strong association between the dementia criteria and the SCOPA-Cognition. The cutoff for maximum accuracy was 22/23, based on the highest sum of sensitivity (0.80) and specificity (0.87), with positive and negative predictive values of 0.43 and 0.97, respectively. The optimal screening cutoff was 24/25, and the optimal diagnostic cutoff was 17/18. Using the recently published Parkinson's disease dementia criteria as a reference, the current study presents SCOPA-Cognition cutoffs for maximum accuracy, screening, and diagnosing of Parkinson's disease dementia. The availability of SCOPA-Cognition cutoffs for Parkinson's disease dementia may contribute to the scale's usefulness and promote its further use in both clinical and research settings.