Development of the Nurses' Observation Scale for Cognitive Abilities (NOSCA)

Table 1

Scales with a focus on direct observation of cognitive function (delirium screening scales excluded).

Scale^(1)	Authors	Setting	Population	Subscales concerning cognition^(2)	Cognitive domains^(3) (𝑛)
A-one	Arnadottir, 1990 [11]	Hospital	Trauma	Motor apraxia, ideational apraxia, body neglect, somatoagnosia, spatial neglect, abnormal tone, perseveration, organisation, sequencing, sensory and expressive aphasia, dysarthria, jargon aphasia, paraphasia, perseveration, anomia	5
Bans-S	Volicer et al., 1987 [12]	Nursing home	Dementia	Speech	1
CPS (MDS/RAI)	Morris et al., 1994 [13]	Nursing home	Dementia	Comatose, short-term memory, decision making, making self understood	4
GIP	Verstraten, 1988 [14]	Nursing home	Elderly	Consciousness, incoherence, memory disorders, disoriented behaviour, aimless repetitive behaviour, suspiciousness	5
MOSES	Helmes et al., 1987 [15]	Nursing home	Elderly	Disorientated behaviour	1
NOSGER	Spiegel et al., 1991 [16]	Hospital	Elderly	Memory	1
OLD	Hopman-Rock et al., 2001 [17]	General practice	Dementia	Forgetfulness, repetition, language, understanding, orientation.	5

⁽¹⁾Scales: A-one: Árnadóttir OT-ADL Neurobehavioral Evaluation.
Bans-S: Bedford Alzheimer Nursing Scale.
CPS: Cognitive Performance Scale, subscale from Minimum Data Set (MDS) and part of the National Residential assessment Instrument for nursing homes RAI.
GIP: Nurses’ Behavioural Rating Scale for Geriatric Inpatients.
MOSES: Multidimensional Observation Scale for Elderly subjects.
NOSGER: Nurses’ observations scale for geriatric patients.
OLD: Observation List for early signs of Dementia.
⁽²⁾Titles of the cognitive subscales. The noncognitive subscales are not listed.
⁽³⁾Cognitive domains of the subscales classified by the seven domains as described by Foreman et al. [5]: alertness/consciousness, attention, memory, thinking, perception, psychomotor behaviour, higher cognitive functions.