SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research Journal of Aging Research Volume 2011, Article ID 853624, 6 pages doi:10.4061/2011/853624 Research Article Concurrent Validity of the Cognitive Assessment of Minnesota in Older Adults with and without Depressive Symptoms Leilani Feliciano,1 Jonathan C. Baker,2 Sarah L. Anderson,1 Linda A. LeBlanc,3 and David M. Orchanian4 1 Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA 2 Rehabilitation Institute, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA 3 Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA 4 Occupational Therapy Department, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Leilani Feliciano, lfelicia@uccs.edu Received 7 December 2010; Accepted 15 February 2011 Academic Editor: Boo Johansson Copyright © 2011 Leilani Feliciano et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cognitive impairment represents a common mental health problem in community-dwelling and institutionalized older adults, and the prevalence increases with age. Multidisciplinary teams are often asked to assess cognitive and functional impairment in this population. The Cognitive Assessment of Minnesota was created by occupational therapists for this purpose and is frequently used, but has not been extensively validated. This study examined the performance of the CAM and compared it to the MMSE with 113 outpatient clinic patients over the age of 60. Subgroups were established based on scores on a depression inventory to determine if the presence of depressed mood altered the relationship between the measures. Both measures demonstrated good internal consistency. The overall correlation between the two measures was high, statistically signiﬁcant and remained high regardless of depression status. We oﬀer recommendations about the utility of each measure in screening cognitive functioning for older adults. 1. Introduction Cognitive impairment represents a common mental health problem in community dwelling and institutionalized older adults, and the prevalence increases with age [1]. Several measures have been developed to assess cognitive func- tioning in this population with some measures having a greater emphasis on memory and language functioning in analog conditions and others focusing more on functional adaptive skill use. Occupational therapists often work within multi-disciplinary settings and are frequently asked to assess the functional and cognitive status of their patients. The Cognitive Assessment of Minnesota (CAM) [2] was created for this purpose. The CAM is a standardized assessment of cognitive functioning developed by occupational therapists. The advantage of using a measure like the CAM is that it covers a greater range of cognitive impairment compared to most cognitive screens, making it potentially more useful as a screening measure. In addition to providing a global measure of cognition, the CAM also assesses practical skill domains. For example, the CAM allows for assessments of working memory and simple mathematical ability (e.g., can the person make change) that would allow for speciﬁc recommendations (e.g., providing assistance to the aﬀected person in managing ﬁnances). The CAM also allows for hierarchical grading of cognitive skills, which may be useful in monitoring change over time. Thus, the CAM may be a promising measure to be used in geriatric settings. Although the CAM is frequently used internationally by OTs in practice and in training settings [3–5], the psychometric properties of the CAM have not been extensively validated. One of the most common screening measures for cog- nitive impairment is the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) [6], a scale developed in neurology to be used as a screener in a number of settings, including medicine, neurology, and psychiatry. The MMSE has proven to be a useful tool because its simplicity allows providers from any discipline to screen for cognitive impairments.