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The article explores the validity of the LACLS-5 (Allen's cognitive level screen) to assess and distinguish adults living in the community with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia. Individuals with mild dementia scored less on all clinical measures than cognitively normal (CN) individuals, however individuals with MCI scored intermediately compared to CN adults. LACLS-5 was able to adequately discriminate between CN and dementia and between MCI and dementia but was unable to reliably distinguish between CN and MCI. Despite these results of tool's inability to distinguish between CN and MCI, LACLS-5 was found to be a significantly effective tool to assess functional cognition.

Abstract in English only, continued investigation for full article in English. Summary: Results MCI is best detected with a MOCA cut off point of 24/25 (80-81% specificity and sensitivity) MCI is best detected with a MMSE cut off 27/28 (66% sensitivity and 73% specificity ) MoCA test better meets the criteria for screening tests for the detection of MCI among patients over 60 years of age than MMSE.

Population-based studies have shown that subtle functional changes can precede a dementia diagnosis by 10 to 12 years. Simple models adjusted for age and education showed that older adults with higher baseline ECog total scores, reflecting greater functional limitations, were at a greater risk of developing MCI at follow-up. Results of this study are consistent with the growing body of literature that demonstrates that subjective concerns regarding functional changes can be associated with biological markers of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, including greater amyloid burden greater brain atrophy, and greater risk of incident dementia. Deficits in everyday memory and executive function domains were the strongest predictors of diagnostic conversion to MCI.

The MoCA also measures a wider range of abilities including executive functions, a higher level cognitive ability required for the implementation of goal-directed behavior and the process of creating and fulfilling a plan. For these reasons, the MoCA was chosen as the comparator assessment of cognition in this study. The cut off score for the MoCA has widely been research and inconclusive. The original cut off score was 26/30 for normal cognition, however many argue the score is too low. This study suggests a computerized battery (CBS- Cambridge Brain Sciences Battery) for patients scoring 23-26, that have a borderline cognitive impairment in order to classify them as impaired or unimpaired. Five tasks from the original 12 of the CBS were chosen to assess aspects of short-term memory, attention, reasoning, and planning. Results: Only two of the tasks were able to distinguish between impaired and unimpaired. Utilizing these tasks in conjunction with the MoCA provides more information regarding testers that fall in the "borderline" category 23-26. The older adults were accepting of the electronic technology.

The BCAT's utility for identifying dementia versus mild cognitive impairment was excellent, with a sensitivity of .99, a specificity of .77, and an area under the receiver-operatingcharacteristic (ROC) curve of .95. Executive control, contextual memory, and attentional capacity items were the best predictors of diagnostic category and of instrumental activities of daily living. From a clinical standpoint, it is recommended a BCAT cut score of 37/38 for differentiating between persons with dementia and those with MCI. This means that patients who have scores of 37 and below are likely to have dementia. This research utilized a population residing in assisted living facilities. Future studies should address a cut off for mild cognitive impairment and non-impaired and community dwelling adults.

The article describes the development and validation of a short form for the Brief Cognitive Assessment tool, BCAT-SF. The article compares the psychometric properties with the short form versus the original. The items represented in the short form represent cognitive domains such as contextual memory, executive functioning, and attention. As a result the BCAT-SF differentiated between mild cognitive impairment and dementia with a sensitivity of .9 and specificity of .8. It was also able to predict IADL and ADL. While the study determined subjects with a score of 16 or below are likely to have dementia it did not establish a cut off score to distinguish MCI from non impaired participants. This is the next step for the researchers in validating the BCAT-SF for a quick, 5 minute or less cognitive screen with functional measures.

The MoCA screen is commonly used for individuals with Parkinson's Disease. The current study is a follow up from an original study. Thus, the aim of this pilot study was to develop an initial version of a new scoring procedure for the MoCA which considers the subtests' power to detect cognitive symptoms in PD, and to test whether it improves the ability to discriminate PD patients without cognitive impairment from patients with MCI and PD dementia. Screening procedures have high value as a time-economic, easy to use tool for a first step in detecting cognitive impairment in clinical practice, but will unlikely outweigh the reliability and validity of a neuropsychological test battery. The sensitivity of the MoCA increased from 68.8% to 81.3% while maintaining a specificity of 75% when using the weighted measurements. This means that more cognitively impaired subjects were detected in both patient groups. Since the sensitiviy increased it greater serves the purpose of a screen, to identify patients with cognitive impairments. The authors suggest this algorithm of weighting subtests may be applicable to patients with PD and other populations as historically some subtests of the MoCA have been too simple for non-demented patients.