Italian Validation of Montreal Cognitive Assessment

Neuropsychological testing is a milestone of good practice to document cognitive deficits in a rapidly aging population. The aim of this paper is to validate the Italian version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). We compared subjects performance at the Italian version of MoCA with performance at standard Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). The whole sample is composed of 287 subjects. All participants were administered three MoCA and a standard MMSE within 4 weeks. Through ROC analysis the optimal MoCA cut-off point was identified, showing high levels of sensitivity and specificity and an accuracy of .96, with 95% confidence interval. Intra rater reliability and intra rater reliability are highly significant with respect to the MMSE. Results highlight that MoCA is a valid instrument in clinical and research screening and monitoring of subjects affected by cognitive disorders. Further studies may be directed to the deepening of the reliability and validity of the test.