MONTREAL COGNITIVE ASSESSMENT (HEARING IMPAIRED) (GERMAN VERSION) IN GERIATRIC COGNITIVE SCREENING

Introduction: Cognitive screening is a crucial part of the geriatric assessment. Up to now all current test rely on the subjects ability to follow auditory verbal instructions and therefore present a major pit-fall in the assessment of senior patients with a hearing loss leading to a probable false negative test result due to misunderstanding of the oral commands and requirements. Our objective was to adapt the “Development of a Cognitive Screening Test for the Severely Hearing Impaired” by Chung J, Shipp D, Friesen L, Black S, Masellis M, Lin V for the German language and to introduce it as a standard cognitive screening in our geriatric assessment. Method: Subjects were recruited from our geriatric clinic. All volunteers first underwent a battery of cognitive screening tools (MMSE, clock completion test)in a standard environment and a hearing assessment (MAT). After that all wereadministered the MoCA-HI. 50 normal hearing and 100 hearing impaired(>40 dB(A)) subjects were tested. As an additional cognitive test the CERAD test battery was performed on all subjects in a hearing adjusted environment. Results: There was a significant correlation between the test results of the MoCA-HI and the CERAD plus battery were as the normal cognitive test showed an inclination towards lower scores in the hearing impaired subjects. The MoCA-HI was introduced to our geriatic clinic as our standard cognitive screening test. Conclusion: The MoCA-HI should be used in cognitive screening in geriatric patients to avoid false negative scores due to hearing impairment.