Evaluation criteria for diagnosing motoric cognitive risk syndrome: a scoping review

Dementia encompasses a range of cognitive disorders marked by declining abilities in attention, memory, and social cognition. Considering this theme, motoric cognitive risk syndrome arises as a promising response to long-term care and early dementia detection although it is a pre-dementia stage.

Considering that the early identification of individuals at higher risk of developing dementia could be key for the development of preventive actions, we conducted a scoping review to investigate the instruments used for the diagnosis of motoric cognitive risk syndrome.

we searched ten electronic databases for studies presenting the assessment of motoric cognitive risk syndrome published between 2019 and 2023. Two independent reviewers screened studies according to including criteria using Mendeley Desktop software to collect, eliminate duplicates and facilitate full-text readings.

From an initial 225 publications related to motoric cognitive risk syndrome, 67 studies were considered eligible for full-text review. Some of those studies presented information for more than one sample, totalizing 82 studies in this scoping review.

Although the diagnostic criteria to identify motoric cognitive risk syndrome are well defined in the literature, there is no description of a structured protocol or list of instruments recommended to evaluate this condition.