SENSE-Cog Validation Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
SENSE-Cog Validation Study: adapting tools for the early recognition of cognitive and sensory health problems.
IRAS ID
211787
Contact name
Rachel Elliott
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 4 months, 12 days
Research summary
Study summary:
This project will address the need for assessments to be valid and applicable for people with communication barriers. A key issue is the lack of availability of valid cognitive health assessments for professional use that can transcend communications barriers such as those resulting from sensory impairment, and diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The dependence on a variety of scales and questionnaires in diagnosis and management is substantial because there are very few objective markers of cognitive health such as imaging or fluid bio-markers.
Assessments that have been developed in one cultural context (often the US) may not be valid when translated and applied in a European context. Care must be taken in both the linguistic and cultural adaptation of assessments to consider both scale items and response categories as well as factors that underlie extreme responding. Only in doing so, can it be assured that outcomes, impacts, and cross-cultural comparisons will be valid. Likewise, assessments of cognitive health in people with a sensory impairment provide added challenges since the vast majority of assessment tools are verbally and visually-based, rendering them invalid for someone with hearing and vision impairments. Sensory impairments may be conflated with cognitive health problems, or vice versa. This study will address this issue by adapting and validating the best tools available.Summary of results:
The main output of this project was development of short tests that can reliably detect cognitive impairment in people with hearing or vision impairment.The problem with most tests for cognitive impairment is that they rely on test-takers having good sensory function. People might be wrongly identified as having a cognitive impairment because of a hearing or vision problem. Given how common hearing and vision impairments are in older adults, there is an urgent need for reliable cognitive screening assessments for people with hearing or vision impairment.
We developed versions of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) adapted and validated for people with hearing or vision impairment. The MoCA is the most widely used screening test for cognitive impairment/dementia. Former President Trump boasted about his exceptional performance on the MoCA, which was given to identify cognitive impairments in the executive leader of the United States.
Working with the MoCA developers in Montreal, we developed and validated alternative forms of the MoCA for people with hearing or vision impairment. These new versions of the MoCA have excellent sensitivity and specificity for identifying cognitive impairment, with performance comparable to the standard MoCA.
The hearing impaired version of the MoCA is already available on the MoCAtest.org website. The vision impaired version will follow shortly. These tests are freely available to clinicians and researchers around the world. Translations of the hearing impaired version of the MoCA MoCA-HI are already available in in Chinese, Arabic, French, German, Greek and Portuguese.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NW/0494
Date of REC Opinion
8 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion