title: Reliability of the MMSE administered in-person and by telehealth.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent advances in telehealth have improved access to health care for those in rural areas. It is important that examinations conducted via telehealth are comparable to in-person testing. A rural and remote memory clinic in Saskatoon provided an opportunity to compare scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) administered in-person and via telehealth.
  
  
  METHODS
  After an initial one day assessment in Saskatoon, patients were seen in follow-up at 6 and 12 weeks. Individual patients were randomly assigned to either in-person follow-up assessment in Saskatoon or telehealth assessment in their home community. Patients who initially received in-person assessments were seen by telehealth for their next follow-up visit and vice-versa. The same neurologist administered MMSEs at all visits. The first 71 patients with both 6 and 12 week follow-up assessments were included in this study. The scores of in-person and telehealth MMSE administrations were compared using the methods of Bland and Altman as well as a paired t-test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  MMSE scores did not differ significantly between telehealth (22.34 +/- 6.35) and in-person (22.70 +/- 6.51) assessments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Telehealth provides an acceptable means of assessing mental status of patients in remote areas.
authors.affiliation: College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Wendaline
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: McEachern
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kirk
authors.forename: Debra G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Crossley
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Henry
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D019114:Remote Consultation / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012424:Rural Population; D012525:Saskatchewan; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D049269:Videoconferencing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*