BioPsychoSocial Assessment Tools for the Elderly - Assessment Summary Sheet Test: Mini-mental Status Examination (MMSE) Year: 1975 Domain: Psychological Assessment Tool Category: Mental Health Variations/Translations: Teng and Chui’s Modified Mini-Mental State Examination as well, other versions vary in the number of items. Several variations in wording also exist. Also available in other languages such as Spanish, French Dutch, Italian, Finish, Korean, Swedish, and Icelandic. Setting: Clinical Method of Delivery: Assessment by clinician Description: The MMSE was developed as a short test suitable for the elderly with dementia. It concentrates on the cognitive aspects of mental functioning. The MMSE includes 11 items covering a person’s orientation to time, place, recall ability, short-term memory, and arithmetic ability. This test may be used as a screening test for cognitive loss but it cannot be used to diagnose dementia. Scoring/Interpretation: The questions can be scored immediately by summing the points to each completed task with a maximum score of 30 (no impairment). It is recommended to treat unanswered questions as errors. The recommended cutting point used to indicate cognitive impairment deserving further investigation is 23 or 24 out of 30. Time to Administer: 15 to 30 minutes Availability: As appendix in many studies; online for a fee (see below) Software: N/A Website: www.minimental.com Quantitative/Qualitative: Quantitative Validity (Quantitative): Concurrent Validity: On a small sample of elderly patients, the MMSE correlated 0.78 with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Verbal IQ scale and 0.78 with the WAIS Verbal IQ. Predictive Validity: It was found by Mitrushina and Satz in small study that those whose score decreased by more than seven points in three years were diagnosed with neurological deficits. Reliability (Quantitative): Test-retest reliability has been examined in many studies. Folstein reported that for samples if psychiatric patients, the test-retest reliability has not fallen below 0.89, and inter-rater reliability has not fallen below 0.82. As well, in another study, the inter-rater reliability gave a Pearson correlation of 0.95 and a Kendall coefficient of 0.63 in a sample of 15 neurological patients. References: Folstein, M.F., Folstein, S.E., & McHugh, P.R. (1975). 'Mini-mental state': a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 12, 189-198. McDowell, I. (2006). Measuring Health: A guide to rating scales and questionnaires 3rd Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Comments: N/A