[Verse 1]
A patient sits across the room, her memories grown thin,
We reach for tools to map the fog collecting deep within,
The MoCA charts her cube and clock, her words recalled in threes,
The MMSE counts her letters backward, pencil to the crease,
But education warps the score — a scholar skews it high,
A elder with no schooling may be sharper than the tally implies,
So RUDAS steps to bridge the gap for those whose lives were forged
In cultures where the written page was never freely stored.
[Chorus]
MoCA, Mini-Cog, SLUMS — screen, don't diagnose,
A clock face drawn with crooked hands tells more than numbers show,
Refer when the picture blurs beyond what screening knows,
These tools are merely lanterns — not the reckoning that glows,
Screen, refer, communicate — that's everything we owe.
[Verse 2]
The Mini-Cog is swift and lean — three words and then a clock,
Enough to flag a clinician when the cognition starts to knock,
The SLUMS was built for veterans with gradations fine and spare,
Detecting milder slippage that the MMSE won't snare,
But hear this clearly: screening is a threshold, not a throne,
A score below the cutoff isn't pathognomonic on its own,
It signals we need sharper lenses, finer calibration,
A neuropsychologist to chart the full constellation.
[Chorus]
MoCA, Mini-Cog, SLUMS — screen, don't diagnose,
A clock face drawn with crooked hands tells more than numbers show,
Refer when the picture blurs beyond what screening knows,
These tools are merely lanterns — not the reckoning that glows,
Screen, refer, communicate — that's everything we owe.
[Bridge]
Here is where the clinician must practice eudaimonia —
That flourishing through duty when the stakes could not be starker,
We share results without the label, honest but restrained,
"Your scores suggest we dig much deeper" — nothing more explained,
Capacity to consent is its own separate inquiry,
Can the elder understand the purpose, weigh it voluntarily?
We pause before the therapy begins and ask with care:
Does she grasp what she is entering — and choose to meet us there?
[Verse 3]
Beyond our scope lives diagnosis — that belongs to other hands,
Neuropsychology maps the archipelago where memory stands,
Executive function, processing speed, the language domains tested,
Referral isn't failure — it's the client's need invested,
We communicate our findings in plain and grounded speech,
No Latin-coded verdicts hurled deliberately out of reach,
"The pattern here concerns me" — and we name what we observed,
Then walk beside them toward the specialists they deserve.
[Chorus]
MoCA, Mini-Cog, SLUMS — screen, don't diagnose,
A clock face drawn with crooked hands tells more than numbers show,
Refer when the picture blurs beyond what screening knows,
These tools are merely lanterns — not the reckoning that glows,
Screen, refer, communicate — that's everything we owe.