Limitations and Potential Improvement of Cognitive Screening Tests for Mild Cognitive Impairment

In this study, we found that the MoCA and the MMSE have moderate efficacy in detecting MCI, and that only a subset of items from each test are the large contributors of MCI detection. Our analysis shows that the number of items on these tests could be substantially reduced which would lower time of test administration without loss of MCI detection effectiveness. There are opportunities for MCI screening test optimization, and further investigation is needed to determine the best possible combination of test items that would yield the highest detection accuracy in the lowest amount of time.