Our group have developed a series of cognitive screening tools, all of which aim to bring neuropsychological expertise into brief assessment tools, to be used in clinical practice and research. The focus has been around delivering domain-specific tools, fit for purpose.

The screening tools were designed to be inclusive for patients with aphasia, hemiplegia and neglect and reduce any confounds that may occur because of these often co-occurring difficulties.

Our cognitive screening tools return a visual snapshot of a patient’s cognitive profile, in a ‘wheel of cognition’, which at a glance demonstrates the specific cognitive domain impairments as well as spared domains of cognition, thereby highlighting both strengths and weaknesses.

Several cultural and language adaptations of the screening tools are already available, with many others ongoing. The endorsed translations adhere to a high standard following strict protocols for translation, and each version has been normed and validated for the targeted population and published in a peer-reviewed publication.

OCS

The Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS) is a first-line, stroke-specific and domain-specific cognitive screening tool which can be delivered at the bedside in acute stroke.  The OCS is easy to administer and score and importantly is inclusive for patients with aphasia and neglect. The OCS domains assessed are Language, Praxis, Number, Memory, Spatial and Controlled Attention. The paper-and-pen based OCS was published in 2015, and has been demonstrated to be a sensitive and inclusive cognitive screen for stroke. The OCS is now used as the clinical standard  in a large number of stroke units, both in the UK and internationally (>2500 clinical users) and is included as a recommended first line screen for stroke in national and international clinical guidelines. (see more detail on the OCS here)

Currently, we are working on a shortened and community care oriented version of the OCS, the mini-OCS, as well as an adaptive cognitive screening approach, with the MCS-Stroke project.

Mini-OCS

The mini-Oxford Cognitive Screen is a short-form extension of the OCS. Mini-OCS was specifically designed to pick up domain-specific post-stroke cognitive problems chronically (>6 months post-stroke) after stroke, including apraxia, neglect, aphasia, an reading impairments. It was designed to be inclusive for patients with aphasia, and reduces confounds from co-occurring language and neglect problems. A brief cognitive screen, which can be delivered in primary care taking max 8 minutes. It returns a visual snapshot of a patient’s cognitive profile which summarises performance across 5 cognitive domains.

The mini-OCS is still under development, with normative data collection complete, and a stroke validation study underway.

OCS-Plus

The OCS-Plus is a computerised tablet- based tool developed to detect more subtle cognitive changes which may otherwise go undetected. The OCS-Plus primarily focusses on briefly assessing domain general performance in Memory and Executive Function. The OCS-plus has been validated and normed in a healthy ageing sample as well as a large stroke cohort, and is available free of charge on the Apple and Google appstores.

OxMET

The Oxford Multiple Errands Task (OxMET) is a brief cognitive screening tool, designed to provide an ecological assessment of applying executive functioning skills in planning, organising, switching and goal maintenance in an everyday (virtual) shopping scenario.