[Brief cognitive evaluation of patients attended in a general neurological outpatient clinic].
BACKGROUND
Cognitive evaluation is usually performed in the assessment of patients with suspected dementia, but is not generally performed in patients with other neurological diseases.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relevance of a systematic cognitive examination in patients with different neurological conditions.


METHODS
One-hundred and five patients consecutively attended over a one-year period in a general Neurology outpatient clinic from a public-affiliated hospital, with no complaints of cognitive changes, were submitted to the following cognitive tests: Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), digit span (forward and backward), delayed recall of ten simple figures, category fluency and clock drawing. Whenever possible, the cut-off scores were adjusted as function of educational level.


RESULTS
Nearly 2/3 of the patients presented impaired performance in at least one of the tests. The MMSE was altered in 20% of the patients. Performance at digit span was impaired in 50.4% of cases (29.5% forward and 20.9% backward), delayed recall in 14.2% of the patients, category fluency in 27.6% and clock drawing in 40.0%.


CONCLUSIONS
These results reinforce the need of including cognitive evaluation as a routine part of the neurological examination, independently of the presence of specific complaints in this domain.
Vitiello
Ana Paula P
AP
Departamento de Neurologia e Divisão de Clínica Neurológica, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Ciríaco
Jovana G M
JG
Takahashi
Daniel Y
DY
Nitrini
Ricardo
R
Caramelli
Paulo
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001938:Brazil; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests