[Hungarian version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for screening mild cognitive impairment]

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can be considered as an intermediate stage between normal cognitive aging and dementia. Its screening is extremely important because within a year in 15-20% of cases dementia can evolve. In Hungary, the most widely used screening tool for both dementia and MCI is the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), which is often criticized for its poor screening sensitivity of mild dementia and MCI. To eliminate this problem, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was developed, especially for screening MCI. Our study presents the first results with the Hungarian translation of MoCA. We used Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for controlling depression. In MoCA the cutoff score between healthy and MCI persons was 24 out of 30. MoCA was more sensitive in detecting MCI than MMSE and its inner consistency was also slightly higher. Specificity of the tests to detect MCI was similar. The results on BDI were not related to either MoCA or MMSE. Our results suggest that MoCA can be a useful tool to detect cognitive decline.