The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is arguably the best-known cognitive screen in the world. Originally designed to assess cognitive impairment in elderly populations, it has become one of the first steps toward a dementia diagnosis. Routinely used in the clinic and in research internationally, the MMSE, despite its flaws, has managed to retain its popularity for more than 30 years. This ...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to report on the prevalence of cognitive impairment, and to assess the performance and utility of subjective, objective and informant screening tools in a heterogeneous community sample. METHOD A sample of 302 elderly participants (>60 years) living in residential homes in a large city in South Africa were screened for the presence of cognitive impairment u...

Prevalence of subjective memory complaints (SMC) in elderly community dwellers (ECD) ranges from 25 to 50%. Some controversy exists over the association between SMC and cognitive status. Objective We investigated whether a correlation in cognitive performance existed between two different groups according to SMC. Methods The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Dementia Rating Scale-Mat...

INTRODUCTION The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is a common cognitive screening test, but its utility in identifying impairments in survivors of acute respiratory failure is unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate MMSE performance versus a concurrently administered detailed neuropsychological test battery in survivors of acute respiratory failure. METHODS This cross-sectional...

Education significantly impacts cognitive performance of older adults even in the absence of dementia. Some cognitive tests seem less vulnerable to the influence of education and thus may be more suitable for cognitive assessment of older adults with heterogeneous backgrounds. The objective of this study was to investigate which tests in a cognitive battery were less influenced by educational l...

Diagnostic standard: 19 item rating scale from section H of the Cambridge Mental Disorders Examination (CAMDEX), taken at enrolment and at 2 years follow up. Section H of the CAMDEX was administered to both the subject and a nominated informant (a person with whom the subject was most familiar), to determine both the subject’s and informant’s perceptions of the subject’s cognitive functioning d...

BACKGROUND Tests requiring the pronunciation of irregular words are used to estimate premorbid cognitive ability in patients with clinical diagnoses, and prior cognitive ability in normal ageing. However, scores on these word-reading tests correlate with scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), a widely used screening test for possible cognitive pathology. This study aimed to test wh...

An adoption/twin design was used to address issues concerning the relationship between education and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) performance. Data on general cognitive abilities, education, and MMSE from 110 identical twin pairs and 177 fraternal pairs aged 50 through 88 were analyzed using multivariate quantitative genetic methods. Genetic influences account for 32% and 19% of the var...

BACKGROUND the investigation of cognitive decline in the older population has been hampered by analytical considerations. Most studies of older people over prolonged periods suffer from loss to follow-up, yet this has seldom been investigated fully to date. Such considerations limit our understanding of how basic variables such as education can affect cognitive trajectories. METHODS we examin...

AIM The aim of this study was standardization and validation of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) in the general Croatian aging population. METHODS Three-hundred and forty-four participants underwent the MMSE test, 217 cognitively healthy subjects without neurological and psychiatric disorders and 127 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia. RESULTS The optimal cuto...