The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a useful screening tool for Parkinson disease (PD) global cognitive and executive functions, a recent study found. Researchers administered a comprehensive neuropsychological battery to 85 Parkinson disease participants, who were then categorized as with or without cognitive impairment, with respect to global cognition and in 5 cognitive domains. They then assessed the domain-specific categorization of the MoCA subsections compared to the full neuropsychology battery. They found:

• All MoCA subsections predicted impairment in their respective cognitive domain.
• However, the executive subsection showed the highest sensitivity and specificity (89.3% and 82.5%, respectively), followed by visuospatial (93.3% and 45.7%, respectively) and memory (84.6% and 56.5%, respectively).
• While the MoCA is highly sensitive to visuospatial and memory impairment, there was limited specificity and accuracy in these subsections and should be interpreted with caution.