Early detection of cognitive impairments with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in patients with uncomplicated and complicated mild traumatic brain injury.

Objectives: The Montreal Cognitive Assessement (MoCA) is a brief and standardized cognitive screening tool that has been used with several clinical populations. The aim of this study was to screen the early cognitive status of patients following mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) with the MoCA.

Methods: The MoCA was administered within the first 2 weeks post-injury to 42 patients with uncomplicated mTBI, 92 patients with complicated mTBI and 50 healthy controls.

Results: Patients with complicated mTBI had a significantly lower performance (more impairments) on the total score of the MoCA than both the group with uncomplicated mTBI and the control group. Also, the group with uncomplicated mTBI had a significantly lower performance than controls. Moreover, age, education and TBI severity had a significant effect on the MoCA total score where younger, more educated and patients with less severe (higher GCS score) mTBI performed significantly better.

Conclusions: The MoCA may be clinically useful to acutely screen cognition following mTBI.