Cognitive Assessment for Stroke Patients: Reproductibility and Validity Study

After a CVA, all of the cognitive functions can be affected and analysed, but the presence of a language disorder may considerably hamper the evaluation of other functions.

The battery of rapid tests to screen for and quantify cognitive disorders, including the MMSE, the MOCA, the R-CAMCOG or the RBANS, are not suitable for aphasic patients because they contain items with a strictly verbal response. Because of this, inexperienced doctors cannot evaluate higher functions (other than language) of aphasics in routine practice. For the same reason, aphasics are regularly excluded from post-cva therapeutic protocols, whether or not the trial bears on the evolution of cognitive functions.

Nonetheless, it is possible to evaluate, at least roughly, all of the cognitive functions without resorting to language.

The investigator have developed , from validated tests and classical clinical manoeuvers, the Cognitive Assessment for Stroke Patients (CASP) :

• for the rapid screening (less than 15 minutes) and quantification of post-cva cognitive disorders (6 functions: language, apraxia, short-term memory, temporal orientation, impaired spatial/visio-construction and executive functions);
• the CASP can be used in most patients, including those with severe disorders of expression and moderate problems with comprehension, The format of these tests has been adapted so that severe disorders of expression (essentially left-hemisphere CVA), and left spatial impairment (right-hemisphere CVA) do not affect the ability to take the test. Its validity in terms of appearance and content were verified in 2011.