SHBC1332

O.H.CHAN¹, L.G.CHAN¹, N.D.LIM¹, L.MOHAPATRA¹, H.S.M.NG¹

Tan Tock Seng Hospital¹

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) has been found to be susceptible to practice effects in healthy older adults. Moreover, it is not commonly used in stroke populations. This study explored possible practice effects of the MoCA in a Singaporean stroke rehabilitation setting. We hypothesised that there would be no significant practice effects and that any increase in the MoCA scores from admission to discharge could instead be attributable to an improvement in cognitive functioning.

The same version of MoCA was administered on 126 stroke patients upon admission and discharge at an inpatient stroke rehab centre, and was analysed against the number of days between admission and discharge. Change in cognitive functioning was measured by the Cognitive subscale of the Functional Independence Measure (FIMCog).

Participants performed significantly better on the discharge MoCA (M = 22.37, SD = 6.22), t(125) = 8.11, p < .001. Improvement in FIMCog scores were predictive of change in MoCA scores (p < .05, R² = 0.04). There was no significant association found between the number of days between MoCA administration and change in MoCA scores. Regression analyses showed that there were no effects of days between administration over and above the effects of FIMCog on MoCA scores.

There were no discernible practise effects of the MoCA found when the same version was used on admission and discharge from inpatient rehabilitation. Future directions could include a quasi-experimental design with matched controls of stroke patients with a healthy adult population.