Mini-mental State Examination performance in mild cognitive impairment subtypes.
BACKGROUND
Diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and its subtypes requires a detailed diagnostic assessment and so may be missed at routine primary-care appointments, since the ordinary dementia screening tests lack sensitivity owing to ceiling effects, especially in highly educated subjects.


METHODS
The study was undertaken using a cross-sectional assessment of 112 elderly subjects (mean age 67.96+/-5.77 years, and mean education level of 12.8+/-5.7 years) with a semi-structured interview and a neuropsychological battery.


RESULTS
MCI patients did not differ from controls on total MMSE scores (p=0.212). Nevertheless, MCI patients showed worse performance than controls on the verbal memory task (p=0.012), and "drawing a pentagon" (p=0.03). Amnestic MCI patients performed worse only on the "three-word recall" task (p=0.013); non-amnestic MCI patients performed worse on the "three-stage command" task (p=0.001); and multiple-domain MCI patients performed worse on the "drawing a pentagon" task (p=0.001) and had a trend toward performing poorly on the 'three word recall' task (p=0.06).


CONCLUSIONS
The analysis of MMSE subtest scores, in addition to MMSE total scores, may increase the sensitivity of the MMSE test in screening for MCI and its subtypes.
Diniz
Breno S O
BS
Laboratory of Neuroscience, Department and Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Yassuda
Monica S
MS
Nunes
Paula V
PV
Radanovic
Marcia
M
Forlenza
Orestes V
OV
D000368:Aged; D000647:Amnesia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015995:Prevalence; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires