# Comparative Analysis of MoCA and DigiMoCA Test Results: A Pilot Study
## 2 Materials and Methods
### Participants and Procedures  
A total of 73 participants were individually tested using the MoCA and 15-item Yesavage Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) to confirm a previous diagnosis of MCI or depression and configure study groups. All participants also completed the Lawton and Brody scale and the Clock Drawing Test (CDT). A subsample of 57 of these individuals participated in a second session carried out through two weeks after the first evaluation, in which they were administered the DigiMoCA. Participants were recruited from Parque CastreloS and Os Cortizos day centers and through publicly displayed recruitment materials. All participants provided informed consent prior to participating in this study. The study protocol was previously approved by the Galician Ethics Committee (2023/503). Figure 1 summarizes the study procedure. Figure 1: Study protocol. Participants were recruited from daycare centers in the Vigo area, NW Spain. All sessions took place in their respective care centers. The inclusion criteria utilised to select the participants in this study are enumerated below. These criteria served also as a reference to define the groups under study. **D+MCI+**: Senior individuals with depressive symptoms and MCI. Subjects with a depression diagnosis (MDD) confirmed by a health professional or previous clinical history; a Yesavage Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) score greater than 5 (indicative of depression); a MoCA score 1.5 deviations below the population mean according to age and educational levels (i.e., level 3 in [PERSON]'s Global Deterioration Scale, GDS). **D+MCI-**: Persons with depressive symptoms that do not exhibited cognitive decline. Individuals with MDD reported by a health professional or previous clinical history; a GDS-15 score greater than 5; a MoCA score within the parameters of normality according to age and educational levels (i.e., GDS 1). **D-MCI+**: Subjects not exhibiting depressive symptoms but with MCI. No diagnosis of depression; a GDS-15 score less than or equal to 5; a MoCA score 1.5 deviations below the average. **D-MCI+**: Control group involving persons not exhibiting depressive symptoms or MCI. No diagnosis of depression; a GDS-15 score less than 5; a MoCA score between 1.5 deviations below the population mean ([PERSON]'s GDS 3). All participants were 60 years of age or older and were located in the Vigo area, Spain. The exclusion criteria below were applied:  
Patients with a psychiatric diagnosis, different from the inclusion criteria for groups D+ MCI+ and D+ MCI-. Dementia diagnosis. Hearing or vocal disability. People unable of consenting to the study. Subjects enrolled in daycare centers for the elderly provided the needed clinical diagnosis details for their classification, while participants external to the day centers were classified according to the cut-off points of the GDS-15 and MoCA scales. In the latter case, a more accurate cut-off point was utilised, according to the normative data in [18]. Participants ranged in age from 60 to 99 years, with an average age of 75.78 \(\pm\) 9.2 years. Of the total number of participants, 30% (22) were male and 69.9% (51) female. From them, 28.8% (21) had depressive symptoms and MCI, 13.7% (10) had depressive symptoms without MCI, 17.8% (13) had MCI without depressive symptoms, and 39.7% (29) were healthy individuals without MCI or depressive symptoms. The participants' distribution in the study groups and the descriptions of the sociodemographic variables are presented in Table 1.