A RUDAS score cutoff of 23.5 distinguished TBI patients from controls with 60% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Therefore, the RUDAS demonstrates both good reliability and validity for evaluating cognitive impairments in TBI patients.

The RUDAS consists of a series of questions aimed at assessing memory, visuospatial orientation, praxis, visuoconstructional drawing, memory recall and language. Cut off score: 22 or less (lower scores indicate greater impairment); 23-30 considered normal, and needs to be considered in the clinical context.

Our study supports the view that RUDAS is a useful screening test for detecting cognitive impairment in clinical settings. We found it to be a user friendly, easy to administer scale. Screening tests should be able to detect cognitive impairment and discriminate between subjects with and without disease.

The Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS) is a short cognitive screening instrument designed to minimise the effects of cultural learning and language diversity on the assessment of baseline cognitive performance.

30 = No impairment; 26 – 30 = Considered normal; 20 – 25 = Mild; 10 – 19 = Moderate; 0 – 9 = Severe. RUDAS: Although the RUDAS has consistently been found to be free of cultural and educational bias in multicultural samples in Australia, one study in South India did find education impacted on the RUDAS score.

The RUDAS scores were defined ing to the RUDAS manual for scoring. ing to the definitions described by Basic et al,18 any score lower than 23 points was suggestive of dementia, and participants with such scores were referred for further neuropsychological testing.

Conduct the RUDAS in a quiet area and make sure the test taker can hear clearly. It is important to identify at the beginning of the assessment if the test taker has impaired hearing and accommodate for this as much as possible by speaking slowly and clearly. Encourage the test taker to wear any hearing aids.