MCI Screen

The MCI Screen is a brief neuropsychological test derived from the protocol of the CERAD 10-word recall test. The protocol consists of an immediate recall task, a triadic comparison task, a judgment task, a delayed free recall task, a cued-recall task, and a rehearsed recall task. It is scored using correspondence analysis and sophisticated statistical methods that yield high accuracy for differentiating normal cognitive function from Mild cognitive impairment. The methodology for scoring the MCI Screen was developed by Medical Care Corporation, a privately held California Corporation.

Validation

The MCI Screen was validated in a study on 471 community dwelling adults whose scores on the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale ranged from 0 (normal: N=119), 0.5 (mild cognitive impairment: N=95), to 1 (mild dementia: N=257). According to a 2005 publication in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the MCI Screen has overall accuracy of 98% with sensitivity of 97% for mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, and 88% specificity for normal aging. [Shankle WR, Romney AK, Hara J, et al. Method to improve the detection of mild cognitive impairment. PNAS. 2005; 102(13): 4919-24.. ] Clinical studies in the USA have shown that the MCI Screen detects early-stage, memory loss due to multiple underlying medical conditions including Alzheimer's disease, cerebrovascular disease, and others. [Trenkle D, Shankle WR, Azen SP. Detecting Cognitive Impairment in Primary Care: Performance Assessment of Three Screening Instruments. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 2007; 11(3):323-335.] Japan based studies have demonstrated cross-cultural validity of the MCI Screen in clinical and academic settings with accuracy levels equal to those in the USA. [Ai Cho, Mika Sugimura, Seigo Nakano, Tatsuo Yamada. Early Detection and Diagnosis of Demented Disorders Using the MCI Screen and Neuroimaging; The Japanese Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine. 2007; 84(8):1152-1160.] [Ai Cho; Mika Sugimura; Seigo Nakano, Tatsuo Yamada. The Japanese MCI Screen for Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders. The American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias. 2008; June/July (in press). ]

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