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The Edinburgh Cognitive ALS Screen

The Edinburgh Cognitive ALS Screen

A tool to help healthcare professionals identify and understand changes in learning, memory and behaviour.

We now know that it’s not just movement that is affected in MND. About half of all people with MND experience ‘cognitive changes’, which means changes in thinking, learning and behaviour. Perhaps their memory isn’t quite what it was, or they have problems motivating themselves to get on with a task.

The right support

Being able to identify those people, and understanding how they are affected, is an important step towards knowing how best to provide support and interventions.

Our researchers have developed a tool for healthcare professionals called the Edinburgh Cognitive ALS Screen (ECAS). The ECAS is like a quiz with lots of different types of questions. The scores people get on the quiz provide an assessment of cognition and behaviour. It can be done in written or spoken form, making it suitable for people with physical disability.

International benefit

The ECAS has proved very popular with healthcare professionals. Funded by the MND Association, our researchers have been travelling around the UK conducting training sessions. The ECAS has even been translated into many different languages for use worldwide.

Meet the researchers

Watch postdoctoral researcher Faith Hodgins describe her work training healthcare professionals to use the ECAS.

Related links

News article (December 2017) -  ECAS on the road: training MND healthcare professionals

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