Psychiatry Investigation  2014;11(1):44-51

Improvement of Screening Accuracy of Mini-Mental State Examination for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Non-Alzheimer's Disease Dementia by Supplementation of Verbal Fluency Performance.

Jee Wook KIM 1 ; Dong Young LEE ; Eun Hyun SEO ; Bo Kyung SOHN ; Young Min CHOE ; Shin Gyeom KIM ; Shin Young PARK ; IL Han CHOO ; Jong Chul YOUN ; Jin Hyeong JHOO ; Ki Woong KIM ; Jong Inn WOO

Affiliations

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Keywords

Mini-Mental State Examination; Verbal fluency; Screening accuracy; Mild cognitive impairment; Non-Alzheimer's disease dementia

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

English

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate whether the supplementation of Verbal Fluency: Animal category test (VF) performance can improve the screening ability of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia and their major subtypes. METHODS: Six hundred fifty-five cognitively normal (CN), 366 MCI [282 amnestic MCI (aMCI); 84 non-amnestic MCI (naMCI)] and 494 dementia [346 Alzheimer's disease (AD); and 148 non-Alzheimer's disease dementia (NAD)] individuals living in the community were included (all aged 50 years and older) in the study. RESULTS: The VF-supplemented MMSE (MMSE+VF) score had a significantly better screening ability for MCI, dementia and overall cognitive impairment (MCI plus dementia) than the MMSE raw score alone. MMSE+VF showed a significantly better ability than MMSE for both MCI subtypes, i.e., aMCI and naMCI. In the case of dementia subtypes, MMSE+VF was better than the MMSE alone for NAD screening, but not for AD screening. CONCLUSION: The results support the usefulness of VF-supplementation to improve the screening performance of MMSE for MCI and NAD.