Telephone-administered cognitive tests as tools for the identification of eligible study participants for population-based research in aging

As part of its recruitment process, the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) will face the challenge of screening out individuals who are sufficiently impaired in their ability to provide informed consent. In the process of developing the design of the CLSA, a review of the literature was performed with the goal of identifying currently existing telephone cognitive screening tools that can be used to identify eligible study participants for population-based research on aging. We identified 12 telephone screening tools, four of which were based on the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) and eight that were based on other face-to-face screening tools. Characteristics - including the constructs measured, the length of time for administration, the scoring/classification scheme, and any information regarding the validation of each tool - were extracted and summarized.