Screening for post-stroke neurocognitive disorders in a culturally diverse population in Suriname

Neurocognitive disorders (NCDs) are prevalent in 53.4% of stroke patients (Barbay et al., 2018), and strongly associated with disability and functional dependence post-stroke (Jokinen et al., 2015; Lawrence et al., 2001; Nys et al., 2007). Early assessment for detection of neurocognitive disorders and rehabilitation is therefore necessary. Although there are cognitive screening tools for NCD in general (e.g., the Montreal Cognitive Assessment; MoCA) and post-stroke NCD (e.g., the Oxford Cognitive Screen; OCS), it is unclear how appropriate these are for use in stroke populations with high cultural diversity. As worldwide migration trends show an increasing diversity within countries’ populations (United Nations, 2002; 2009), is it necessary to investigate how well these tests perform psychometrically in populations with high cultural diversity.

The overall aim of the PhD project is to investigate the accuracy of cognitive screening tools for detecting NCDs in populations with stroke and high cultural diversity. To reach this aim, the project is divided in work packages, each assessing a specific objective.

The first objective is to review the accuracy of two commonly used domain-general cognitive screening tools and one more recently developed domain-specific cognitive screening tool in detecting NCD across culturally different stroke populations.

The second objective is to investigate the psychometric properties of a domain-general and a domain-specific cognitive screening tool, specifically the MoCA and the OCS, in healthy adults in Suriname (South-America), a population with high cultural diversity.

The third objective is to investigate the psychometric properties of these tools, specifically the MoCA and OCS, in stroke patients in Suriname (South-America), a stroke population with high cultural diversity.

In summary, this project will review and investigate the psychometric properties of cognitive screening tools for detecting NCDs in stroke populations with cultural diversity.