Introducing the Tele-OCS: A validated remotely administered version of The Oxford Cognitive Screen

Background
Remote cognitive assessments are increasingly used with a rising popularity of teleneuropsychology. Here, we evaluated the performance of the remotely administered Oxford Cognitive Screen (Tele-OCS), in adult stroke survivors compared to in-person administration.
Methods
Forty stroke survivors (M age = 69.30, SD = 10.44; sex = 30% female) completed the in-person and remote version of the OCS approximately 30 days apart, with different trained examiners. The order of administration was counterbalanced. Cohen’s d estimates were used to compare performance between modalities.
Results
We found that the proportion of subtasks impaired did not differ across modalities. With regards to raw scores, only the picture naming and executive score were found to be statistically different though the extent was minimal (<1 point difference on average), not affecting impairment classifications.
Conclusions
The remote OCS classified cognitive impairments in a comparable way to the in-person version. The validation of the Tele-OCS, allows for remote assessment to increase accessibility and pragmatically aid in addressing the clinical need for stroke-specific cognitive screening in a wider population.

Publication DOI dx.doi.org/10.12688/healthopenres.13291.1