Mini mental state exam versus Montreal cognitive assessment in patients with age-related macular degeneration

To compare the ability of the MMSE and MoCA to identify cognitive dysfunction in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

The study included 81 (29 female, 52 male) AMD patients who were recruited from the Ophthalmology Department of Kırıkkale University during 2012. Participants were screened for cognitive impairment using the MMSE and MoCA. The scores were recorded for all participants. The primary outcome measure was the proportion of patients with a score less than 21 on either test.

The percentage of subjects who scored below a cut off of 21/30 was higher on the MoCA (48.1%) than on the MMSE (18.5%) (p = 0.05). The range and standard deviation of scores was larger with the MoCA (7-30, 5.34) than with the MMSE (19-30, 3.26). There was a more pronounced ceiling effect of the MMSE than of the MoCA. The mean MMSE scores of dry-and wet-type AMD patients was significantly higher than the MoCA scores of the same patients (p = 0.000 and p = 0.000).

The MoCA seems to be more sensitive than the MMSE to early cognitive impairment in AMD patients.