Validity of the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) screen for higher cerebral functions in stroke patients with good functional outcome

Cognitive impairments are often under diagnosed in stroke patients with good functional outcome. There is a need for a cognitive screening instrument that is sufficiently sensitive to cognitive impairments in these stroke patients. For this goal, we tested the feasibility and validity of the Barrow Neurological Institute Screen for Higher Cerebral Functions (BNIS). Stroke patients with good functional outcome (Barthel Index 19/20) within 1 year poststroke were administered the BNIS and a brief neuropsychological assessment (NPA) including tests for perception, language, memory, attention, reasoning, and executive functioning. We compared the BNIS with the NPA to investigate its feasibility, internal consistency, floor and ceiling effects, concurrent validity, sensitivity and specificity. Fifty-four stroke patients were included. It took significantly less time to administer the BNIS (median = 16 minutes) than the NPA (median = 32.7 minutes). The BNIS showed good internal consistency (alpha = .82) and no floor or ceiling effects. The recommended cutoff values yielded good sensitivity and low to good specificity, depending on age. Except for perception (Spearman correlation .33), BNIS domain scores were significantly (0.44-0.55) associated with matching neuropsychological tests. This study provides promising results for the BNIS as a measure to detect cognitive impairments in stroke patients with good functional outcome.