The assessment of cognition in visually impaired older adults

visual and cognitive impairments are common in later life. Yet there are very few cognitive screening tests for the visually impaired.

to screen for cognitive impairment in the visually impaired.

case-control study including 150 elderly participants with visual impairment (n = 74) and a control group without visual impairment (n = 76) using vision-independent cognitive tests and cognitive screening tests (MMSE and clock drawing tests (CDT)) which are in part vision dependent.

the scoring of the two groups did not differ in the vision-independent cognitive tests. Visually impaired patients performed poorer than controls in the vision-dependent items of the MMSE (T = 7.3; df: 148; P < 0.001) and in CDT (T = 3.1; df: 145; P = 0.003). No group difference was found when vision-independent items were added to MMSE and CDT. The test score gain by the use of vision-independent items correlated with the severity of visual impairment (P < 0.002).

visually impaired patients benefit from cognitive tests, which do not rely on vision. The more visually impaired the greater the benefit.