title: Brief screening for mild cognitive impairment: validation of the Brazilian version of the Montreal cognitive assessment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a brief cognitive schedule that has been developed for the screening of patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). MCI is recognized as a high-risk state for Alzheimer's disease. The aim of the present study is to examine the reliability and validity of the Brazilian version of the MoCA test (MoCA-BR) in a sample of older individuals with at least 4 years of education.
  
  
  METHODS
  The MoCA-BR was administered to 112 older adults who were classified into three diagnostic groups according to their cognitive state (Alzheimer's disease, n = 28; MCI, n = 43; normal controls, n = 41). This procedure was based on clinical and neuropsychological data. The performance in the MoCA-BR was compared with the Mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and the Cambridge Cognitive Examination. Diagnostic accuracy was examined with the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cronbach's alpha for the MoCA-BR was 0.75. Temporal stability (retesting after 3 months) using intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.75 (p < 0.001). The sensitivity and specificity of the MoCA-BR for MCI were 81% and 77%, respectively, with a cut-off score of 25 points. The area under the ROC curve for predicting MCI was 0.82 ± 0.06.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present results indicate that the MoCA-BR maintains its core diagnostic properties rendering it a valid and reliable tool for the screening of MCI among older individuals with at least 4 years of education.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuroscience, Department and Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Cláudia M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Memória
authors.forename: Mônica S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Yassuda
authors.forename: Eduardo Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Nakano
authors.forename: Orestes V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Forlenza
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001938:Brazil; D010054:Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results