“We found that this test, which takes less than 10 min­utes, can help pre­dict whether peo­ple will have impaired think­ing skills, prob­lems that keep them from per­form­ing dai­ly tasks such as bathing and dress­ing and even whether they will be more like­ly to die,” said study author Mar­tin Dich­gans, MD, of Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians Uni­ver­si­ty in Munich, Germany…The study found that those who had think­ing prob­lems with­in one week of the stroke were sev­en times more like­ly to die dur­ing the three years of the study than those who did not have think­ing prob­lems. The sur­vival rate for those with think­ing prob­lems after three years was 83 per­cent, while the rate was 97 per­cent for those with no think­ing prob­lems ear­ly on.
Objec­tive: To exam­ine whether the Mon­tre­al Cog­ni­tive Assess­ment (MoCA) admin­is­tered with­in 7 days after stroke pre­dicts long-term cog­ni­tive impair­ment, func­tion­al impair­ment, and mor­tal­i­ty.
Con­clu­sion: Ear­ly cog­ni­tive test­ing by MoCA pre­dicts long-term cog­ni­tive out­come, func­tion­al out­come, and mor­tal­i­ty after stroke. Our results sup­port rou­tine use of the MoCA in stroke patients.