Validation of a brief Multicultural Cognitive Examination (MCE) for evaluation of dementia.

Sammendrag på engelsk (abstract):

BACKGROUND:
The aims of this study were to present the psychometric properties of a newly designed cognitive screening instrument, the Multicultural Cognitive Examination (MCE), and to compare it with the Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS in a multicultural population.
METHODS:
The study was a Western European cross-sectional multi-center study. The MCE consists of four components evaluating separate cognitive functions and was constructed by adding measures of memory, verbal fluency, and visuospatial function to the RUDAS to create a scale with 0-100 points.
RESULTS:
A total of 66 patients with dementia and 123 cognitively intact participants were included across six memory clinics; 96 had minority ethnic background and 93 had majority ethnic background. Moderate to large differences were present between patients with dementia and control participants on all MCE components. The MCE significantly improved diagnostic accuracy compared to using the RUDAS alone, with area under the curves of.918, .984 and.991 for the RUDAS, MCE composite and demographically corrected composite scores, respectively. Diagnostic accuracy of the MCE did not significantly differ between minority and majority ethnic groups. Across MCE subcomponents, patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia performed significantly poorer on the memory component compared to those with non-AD dementia.
CONCLUSIONS:
The MCE is a brief cross-cultural cognitive screening instrument that expands evaluation of the cognitive functions covered by the RUDAS, does not require any specialized training, and may be useful for classification of mild dementia or dementia subtypes.