title: Structure of the Mini-Mental State Examination: a comparison between normal and clinical subjects.
abstract: The Mini-Mental State Examination was administered to a sample of 133 Italians ranging from 60 to 80 years of age. From a Principal Components Analysis three factors were retained, being results of both varimax and oblimin rotations. These were labeled (1) Memory, (2) Verbal Comprehension, and (3) Attention. These factors are similar to those obtained with normal elderly Americans, but they are different from the factors based on clinical samples. No age differences in the factor scores were found among the normal elderly subjects when education was considered. In contrast, significant differences were found between a group of 25 demented patients and a matched group randomly extracted from the normal sample.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Roma La Sapienza, Italia. pezzuti@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pezzuti
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003704:Dementia / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics