The MMSE and MoCA for Screening Cognitive Impairment in Less Educated Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) can be used to screen for dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in less educated patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). METHODS: We reviewed the medical records of PD patients who had taken the Korean MMSE (K-MMSE), Korean MoCA (K-MoCA), and comprehensive neuropsychological tests. Predictive values of the K-MMSE and K-MoCA for dementia or MCI were analyzed in groups divided by educational level. RESULTS: The discriminative powers of the K-MMSE and K-MoCA were excellent [area under the curve (AUC) 0.86–0.97] for detecting dementia but not for detecting MCI (AUC 0.64–0.85). The optimal screening cutoff values of both tests increased with educational level for dementia (K-MMSE < 15 for illiterate, < 20 for 0.5–3 years of education, < 23 for 4–6 years, < 25 for 7–9 years, and < 26 for 10 years or more; K-MoCA < 7 for illiterate, < 13 for 0.5–3 years, < 16 for 4–6 years, < 19 for 7–9 years, < 20 for 10 years or more) and MCI (K-MMSE < 19 for illiterate, < 26 for 0.5–3 years, < 27 for 4–6 years, < 28 for 7–9 years, and < 29 for 10 years or more; K-MoCA < 13 for illiterate, < 21 for 0.5–3 years, < 23 for 4–6 years, < 25 for 7–9 years, < 26 for 10 years or more). CONCLUSION: Both MMSE and MoCA can be used to screen for dementia in patients with PD, regardless of educational level; however, neither test is sufficient to discriminate MCI from normal cognition without additional information.