The NUCOG is a brief, portable and easy-to-administer cognitive screening instrument developed at the Neuropsychiatry Unit of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia for use in medical, neurologic and psychiatric patient populations, with an emphasis on balancing breadth and brevity, whilst ensuring sensitivity to the subtle changes seen across a range of disorders. These features make the NUCOG ideal for use in a wide range of clinical settings, including office-based health practice, hospitals, and clinic use. The NUCOG combines a thorough coverage of major cognitive domains (attention, memory, language, executive and visuospatial function) with relative brevity and ease of use. Each cognitive domain is scored out of 20 possible points, yielding a maximum NUCOG score of 100.
Validated in a variety of psychiatric, neurologic and general medical populations, the NUCOG provides a multidimensional profile of an individuals cognitive status, and takes less than 20 minutes to provide an in-depth assessment of cognitive functioning. An individuals cognitive profile is plotted against normative data means and standard deviations for each domain, allowing the ready visualisation of the pattern of cognitive weaknesses and strengths. The NUCOG is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Malay, Turkish, Uyghur and simplified Chinese versions. When integrated with a clinical assessment, this can greatly assist in the diagnosis and management of cognitive disorders and serve as a guide to more in-depth formal neuropsychological testing.
The iPad version of the NUCOG allows for drawing directly on the screen, or the utilisation of the iPads built-in camera, to record patient responses. It also uses the in-built clock of the iPad for timed tests. Results of testing can be printed or emailed in PDF file format.
Why use the NUCOG? The NUCOG provides multidimensional scoring, covers areas of cognitive function that other tools neglect (such as executive functioning, spatial memory), is portable and straightforward to use with minimal training. The NUCOG is the ideal tool for use in general medical, neurological, psychiatric and geriatric settings.