Modified Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (M-WCST)

Purpose: Quickly assess perseveration and abstract reasoning

Age: 18-90 years

Time: 7-10 minutes (3 minutes to score)

The Modified Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (M-WCST) is a modification of the original Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) that eliminates all cards from the original 128-card deck that share more than one attribute with a stimulus card.

The resulting 48-card deck is used along with four stimulus cards to assess perseveration and abstract reasoning with minimal client frustration.

The M-WCST shows excellent sensitivity to impaired problem solving and perseverative reasoning in individuals with many other neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), left temporal lobe epilepsy, chronic alcoholism, Korsakoff’s syndrome, subcortical vascular dementia, and mild cognitive impairment.

Four scores are provided:

1. Number of Categories Correct
2. Number of Perseverative Errors
3. Number of Total Errors
4. Percent of Perseverative Errors.

An Executive Function Composite score can also be calculated.

In a study that compared patients with unilateral lesions with healthy controls, the Number of Categories Correct score was able to distinguish the clinical sample from the healthy controls. In addition, both the Number of Categories Correct score and the Number of Perseverative Errors score have been found to distinguish patients with Alzheimer’s-type dementia from healthy elderly adults.