Evaluation of the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for Predicting Post-stroke Cognitive Impairment During the Acute Phase in Chinese Minor Stroke Patients

• Published in: Frontiers in aging neuroscience Vol. 12; p. 236
• Main Authors: Zhu, Yueli, Zhao, Shuai, Fan, Ziqi, Li, Zheyu, He, Fan, Lin, Caixiu, Topatana, Win, Yan, Yaping, Liu, Zhirong, Chen, Yanxing, Zhang, Baorong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lausanne Frontiers Research Foundation 06-08-2020; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: acute stroke; Age; Aging; Body mass index; Cognitive ability; cognitive impairment; Diabetes; Education; Hypertension; Ischemia; Medical students; mini-mental state examination; montreal cognitive assessment; Neuroscience; Neurosciences; Older people; Patients; prediction; Questionnaires; Risk factors; Stroke
• ISSN: 1663-4365; 1663-4365
• DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2020.00236

Objective: To assess the value of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) during acute phase in predicting post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) at 3–6 months. Methods: We prospectively recruited 229 patients who had suffered their first-ever ischemic stroke. PSCI was determined in 104 of these patients by a comprehensive neuropsychological battery performed at 3-6 months. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was then performed to compare the discriminatory ability of the MMSE and MoCA. In addition, we applied a decision tree generated by classification and regression tree (CART) methodology. Results: In total, 66 patients had PSCI when evaluated 3-6 months after the onset of minor stroke. Logistic regression analysis revealed that education, body mass index (BMI), and baseline MoCA scores were independently associated with PSCI. ROC curve analysis showed that the ability to predict PSCI was similar when compared between baseline MoCA scores (area under curve [AUC], 0.821; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.743 to 0.898) and baseline MMSE scores (AUC, 0.809; 95% CI, 0.725 to 0.892), P = 0.75). Both MMSE and MoCA exhibited similar predictive values at their optimal cutoff points (MMSE ≤ 27; sensitivity, 0.682; specificity, 0.816; MoCA ≤ 21; sensitivity, 0.636; specificity, 0.895). CART-derived analysis yielded an AUC of 0.823 (sensitivity, 0.803; specificity, 0.842). Conclusion: When applied within 2 weeks of stroke, the MMSE and MoCA are both useful, have similar predictive value for PSCI 3-6 months after the onset of minor stroke.