Understanding the performance of screening tools for mild cognitive impairment

A study assessing the application of a self-administered picture description screening tools for individuals with mild cognitive impairment found that, when compared to healthy controls, the task could distinguish between mild cognitive impairment and healthy control with an area under the receiver operator curve (AUROC) of 0.74.
Identification specificity differed depending on subtype of mild cognitive impairment with an AUROC of 0.88 for amnestic mild cognitive impairment and an AUROC of 0.61 for non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
Typically, picture description screening tasks have to be administered and scored in-person, which provides a barrier to widespread application. The authors concluded that the performance of this self-administered screening tool will differ greatly depending on mild cognitive impairment subtype.