MoCA
MoCA is a comprehensive cognitive screening test meeting needs in the assessment of substance use disordered patients. The MoCA has been found to be useful to detect mild cognitive impairment in many conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular Cognitive Impairment, Parkinson’s disease, Lewy Body, Fronto-temporal dementia, Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington disease, Brain Tumors, ALS, Sleep Apnea, Heart Failure, Substance abuse, Schizophrenia, HIV, and Head Trauma. The MoCA is recommended by the Canadian Consensus Conference for Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia Guidelines for Alzheimer’s disease since 2007, and the NIH and Canadian Stroke Consortium for Vascular Cognitive Impairment since 2006.
The MoCA validation study (Nasreddine et al. JAGS 2005) is identified by Thomson Reuters’ Essential Science Indicators as one of the most cited papers in the research area of “mild cognitive Impairment” in 2009, and MoCA is used in 100 countries around the world (MoCA wesbite Stats 2013). The test is available in Norwegian, but has not been thoroughly tested in Norwegian settings nor validated for the SUD population. The goal of the project is to validate and establish a Norwegian norm for MoCA in the substance use disordered population.
Collaborators: Espen Ajo Arnevik (OUS), Kristine Fiksdal Abel (OUS), Egon Hagen (KORFOR, Stavanger University Hospital) Marius Sømhovd (Tyrilistiftelsen)
Publications: None