Italian normative data for a stroke specific cognitive screening tool: the Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS).

Cognitive deficits occur in most stroke patients and cognitive impairment is an important predictor of adverse long term outcome. However, current screening measures, such as the Mini Mental State Examination or the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, do not provide information tuned for evaluating the impact of cognitive impairment in the early phase after stroke. The Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS) represents an important new development in this regard. The OCS is now available for assessment of Italian individuals and the aim of this study is to standardize the OCS on a large sample of healthy Italian participants stratified for age, gender and education level. Results confirmed the influence of these factors in several of the OCS tasks. Age-, education- and gender-adjusted norms are provided for the ten sub-tests of the test. The availability of normative data represents an important prerequite for the reliable use of OCS with stroke patients.