Masterclass September 2017

Prof Dawn Langdon

Reader in Neuropsychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

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This the first Masterclass post and my last action as Secretary of IMSCOGS, as I have completed my term of office. Dr Bruno Brochet, Professor of Neurology at Université Bordeaux-Segalen, France, and Head of the department of Neurology, Centre Hospitalier-Universitaire of Bordeaux, France, is the IMSCOGS Secretary.

BICAMS

The Brief International Cognitive Assessment for MS initiative was set up in 2011 (www.BICAMS.net). The first stage was to recommend a brief battery1 and the second was to recommend an international validation protocol.2 Our aim was to develop a universal measure of cognition in MS that could be used across centres and countries, so that clinical and research cognitive data could be precisely related and understood by the international MS community.

We now have over 30 countries in the international validation pipeline (11 published in peer review journals). BICAMS has been recommended for cognitive assessment of MS in the AAN Quality Measurement Set. BICAMS is also being used in a growing number of research studies and in a number of multinational pharma trials. IPAD BICAMS is scheduled for release at the end of 2017.

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References

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1. Langdon DW, Amato MP, Boringa J, Brochet B, Foley F, Fredrikson S, Hämäläinen P, Hartung HP, Krupp L, Penner IK, Reder AT, Benedict RH. Recommendations for a Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS). Mult Scler. 2012 Jun;18(6):891-8.
2. Benedict RH, Amato MP, Boringa J, Brochet B, Foley F, Fredrikson S, Hamalainen P, Hartung H, Krupp L, Penner I, Reder AT, Langdon D. Brief International Cognitive Assessment for MS (BICAMS): international standards for validation. BMC Neurol. 2012 Jul 16;12:55.