Journal Article

Reliable change indices for the Italian version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in non-demented Parkinson’s disease patients

Bonetti, Ruggero, Priori, Alberto, Poletti, Barbara, Barbieri, Sergio, Scheveger, Francesco, Morelli, Claudia, Olivero, Marco, Doretti, Alberto, Verde, Federico, Solca, Federica, Ferrucci, Roberta, Torre, Silvia, Mellace, Denise, Curti, Beatrice, De Luca, Giulia, Aiello, Edoardo Nicolò, Colombo, Eleonora, Ciammola, Andrea, Maderna, Luca, Marfoli, Angelica, Ruggiero, Fabiana, Maranzano, Alessio, De Sandi, Angelica, Silani, Vincenzo, Ticozzi, Nicola, Pravettoni, Gabriella

2024

Overview

Background . The present study aimed at deriving regression-based reliable change indices (RCIs) for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in an Italian cohort of non-demented Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. Methods N  = 33 consecutive, non-demented PD patients were followed-up at a 5-to-8-month interval ( M  = 6.6; SD  = 0.6) with the MoCA. Practice effects and test-retest reliability were assessed via dependent-sample t -tests and intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficients, respectively. RCIs were derived separately for raw and demographically adjusted MoCA scores according to a standardized regression-based approach by accounting for both baseline confounders (i.e., demographics, disease duration and Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale scores) and retest interval. Results No practice effects were found ( t (32) = 0.29; p  = .778), with acceptable test-retest reliability being detected (ICC = 0.67). MoCA scores at T0 proved to be the only significant predictor of T1 MoCA performances within both the model addressing raw scores and that addressing adjusted scores ( p s < 0.001). Conclusions The present study provides Italian practitioners and researchers with regression-based RCIs for the MoCA in non-demented PD patients, which can be reliably adopted for retest interval ≥ 5 and ≤ 8 months without encountering any practice effect.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Aged / Analysis / Care and treatment / Cognition & reasoning / Cognitive ability / Cognitive appraisal / Cognitive Dysfunction - diagnosis / Cognitive Dysfunction - etiology / Cognitive screening / Complications and side effects / Dementia / Diagnosis / Feasibility / Female / Humans / Italy - epidemiology / Longitudinal studies / Male / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Mental Status and Dementia Tests - standards / Mental Status and Dementia Tests - statistics & numerical data / Middle Aged / Montreal Cognitive Assessment / Movement disorders / Neurochemistry / Neurodegenerative diseases / Neurology / Neuropsychology / Neurosurgery / Parkinson Disease - diagnosis / Parkinson Disease - psychology / Parkinson's disease / Population / Psychometrics / Reliable change index / Reproducibility of Results / Statistical analysis