Effects of Normative Adjustments to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

1Our study examines optimal cutoff scores for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as a screening instrument for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD-dementia), as well as the effects of normative adjustments on diagnostic classification.2The ability of the MoCA to classify diagnostic status was similar for raw, education-adjusted, and NACC-adjusted scores. Our results suggest that the optimal cutoff score for distinguishing MCI is 24 and for distinguishing dementia is 22.3Further study is needed to determine appropriate use of the MoCA as a screening tool, but the optimal cutoff score may be lower than the previously suggested threshold of 26.