With the emergence of the coronavirus 2019 pandemic, investigating the validity of tele-screenings for neuropsychological status has become increasingly necessary. While the telephone version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-T) has been validated for use in patients with Parkinson’s and stroke/cerebrovascular disease, the clinical utility of this instrument in geriatric patients with other suspected cognitive disorders has yet to be determined. Thus, the present study aimed to examine the classification accuracy of the MoCA-T in a mixed clinical sample of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia.

Ninety-one older adults were administered the MoCA-T via videoconferencing technology as part of a comprehensive neurocognitive evaluation performed by a multidisciplinary treatment team within a dementia specialty clinic. Based on this evaluation, 51 (56.0%) patients were diagnosed with dementia, 27 (29.7%) with MCI, and 13 (14.3%) with no neurocognitive diagnosis (i.e., subjective cognitive complaints). In addition to MoCA-T total and item scores, we also computed subscale scores for between-group comparisons as the sum of items assessing orientation, language, attention/executive function, and memory. ANOVA/ANCOVA and ROC curve analyses were used to examine between-group differences on the MoCA-T and its psychometric properties in discriminating patients with MCI or dementia, respectively.

Participants had a mean age of 74.3 ± 8.7 and education of 16 ± 2.9 years. Patients with dementia were significantly older than those with MCI and no diagnosis, but there were no other significant between-group differences in clinical characteristics. MoCA-T total [F(2,86)=28.5, p<0.001] and all subscale scores (p<0.01) differed significantly between groups and in the expected direction (dementia<MCI<no diagnosis) even after controlling for age. The only exception was language for which there was initially a statistical trend (p=0.06) that reached significance (p<0.05) after controlling for age. In terms of individual items, abstraction, fluency, orientation to place/city, and category cued recall were the only items that did not differ significantly between groups. ROC curve analyses revealed -5 points to be the optimum cut-off for distinguishing between cognitively normal individuals from patients with MCI (Sensitivity=0.67; Specificity=0.77; AUC=0.78), and a cut-off of -8 points optimally distinguished between patients with MCI and dementia (Sensitivity=0.77; Specificity=0.74; AUC=0.81).

The current study provides further evidence for the clinical utility of the MoCA-T as a screening instrument for neurocognitive disorders in older adults and extends prior work to include administration via videoconferencing technology. While previous studies have focused on the use of MoCA-T in specific patient populations, here, we demonstrate the validity of this screening tool in a mixed-clinical sample, which suggests its broader use in clinical settings for distinguishing between neurocognitive disorders, regardless of the underlying etiology.