Objective:

To establish the validity and reliability of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in Spanish (MoCA-S) to identify mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia in the Mexican elderly population.

Material and methods:

168 participants from a memory clinic in Mexico City were enrolled and divided into 3 groups: 59 cognitively healthy (CHG), 52 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (DSM-5 criteria) and 57 with dementia (NINCDS-ADRDA criteria). The MoCA-S and Mini-Mental State Evaluation (MMSE) were applied at baseline and during the last months to establish intra-observer reliability. ROC curves and a multinomial regression model were constructed to evaluate the effect of age and education on MoCA-S performance.

Results:

The mean age of the participants was 76 ± 8.1 years and the education rate was 10.7 ± 5.2. The MoCA-S scores by group were: CHG, 27.3 ± 1.9; MCI, 22.9 ± 2.9; and dementia, 13.7 ± 4.9(p< 0.001). The reliability of the MoCA-S was 0.89 and the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.955. Sensitivity was 80% and specificity was 75%, with a cut-off point of 26 points for MCI (area under the curve, 0.886; p< 0.001). For the dementia group, the sensitivity was 98% and specificity was 93%, with a cut-off point of 24 points (area under the curve, 0.998; p< 0.001). The multinomial regression showed no association with education and age for both the MCI and dementia groups.

Conclusions:

The MoCA-S is a valid and reliable instrument for MCI and dementia screening in the Mexican population, even after adjusting for age and education.

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