DEMENTIA-MMSE COGNITIVE SCREENING

SUMMARY

1. Brief screening tool that provides a quantitative assessment of cognitive impairment (Folstein et al. 1975).
2. Although the MMSE is widely used, its limitation is lack of sensitivity in identifying small changes in cognitive impairment.

3. Individuals who have mild cognitive impairment can score in normal range on MMSE.
4. Levels of impairment can be classified as none (24-30); mild (18-24) and severe (0-17) (Tombaugh and McIntyre 1992).

DISADVANTAGES
5. MMSE has not been shown to be sensitive to conditions associated with frontal-executive, subcortical dysfunction and to milder forms of cognitive impairment (Pendlebury et al. 2010).

6. The MMSE can be affected by age, level of education and socio-cultural background, which may lead to misclassification (Tombaugh & McIntyre 1992, Bleeker et al. 1988, Lorentz et al. 2002).

Reference(s)

Wilkinson, I., Furmedge, D. and Sinharay, R. (2017). Oxford handbook of clinical medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Get it on Amazon.
Feather, A., Randall, D. and Waterhouse, M. (2020). Kumar And Clark’s Clinical Medicine. 10th ed. S.L.: Elsevier Health Sciences. Get it on Amazon.
Hannaman, R. A., Bullock, L., Hatchell, C. A., & Yoffe, M. (2016). Internal medicine review core curriculum, 2017-2018. CO Springs, CO: MedStudy.
Therapeutic Guidelines. Melbourne: Therapeutic Guidelines Limited. https://www.tg.org.au [Accessed 2021].