Montreal Cognitive Assessment Performance Among Community-Dwelling African Americans

Objective: To report descriptive and normative data for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in a population-based African American sample.Method: The MoCA was administered to 1,419 African American participants (mean age 49.89 years, range 18-75, 64% female). After excluding those with subjective cognitive complaints (n = 301), normative data were generated by education and overlapping age ranges (n = 1,118). Pearson correlations and analysis of variance were used to examine the relationship to demographic variables, and frequency of missed items was reviewed.Results: Total MoCA scores (mean 22.3, SD 3.9) were lower than previously published normative data derived from an elderly Caucasian Canadian population with 80% falling below the suggested cutoff (<26) for impairment. Several MoCA items were missed by a large portion of the sample, including cube drawing (72%), delayed free recall (66% < 4/5 words), sentence repetition (63%), and abstraction items (45%).Conclusion: This is the first study to examine normative performance on the MoCA specific to community-dwelling African Americans. Findings suggest that certain aspects of this measure and previously established cutoff scores may not be well-suited for some populations.