PSDRS, BDI, MoCA and MMSE as screening tools for the evaluation of mood and cognitive functions in patients at the early stage of cerebral stroke

Abstract

Aims. To evaluate the suitability of the Post-Stroke Depression Scale (PSDRS) for detecting affective disorders, to examine the correlation of depressed mood states with cognitive disorders in patients at an early stage of cerebral stroke, and to attempt a comparison of the effectiveness of detecting depressive and cognitive disorders with the selected clinical scales. Material and methods. The examination involved 43 patients within the first week after cerebral stroke. It was carried out with the application of two screening scales, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and two scales for the evaluation of the degree of depressiveness: PSDRS and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results. A significant negative correlation of the results of the PSDRS and MoCA scales was shown. Depressed mood in patients post-cerebral stroke was statistically significantly correlated with the disorders in selected cognitive skills: visual and spatial functions, memory, attention functions and abstracting ability. Conclusions. The PSDRS and MoCA scales proved to be more effective tools for the evaluation of depressive and cognitive disorders in patients at an early stage after cerebral stroke than the conventionally applied MMSE and BDI scales. The examination results additionally show a significant dependence between mood and the cognitive impairment in this group of patients. With the weakening of cognitive functioning, the patients’ mood also became depressed