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Modification of the mini‐mental state examination for use with the elderly in a non‐western society. Part II: Cutoff points and their diagnostic validities
Author(s) -
Park JongHan,
Park Young Nam,
Ko Hyo Jin
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930061208
Subject(s) - dementia , medical diagnosis , psychiatry , mini–mental state examination , geriatric psychiatry , psychiatric diagnosis , mental state , cutoff , psychology , medicine , gerontology , cognitive impairment , cognition , physics , disease , pathology , quantum mechanics
Diagnostic power of the Korean version of the Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE‐K) (Park and Kwon, 1990) for DSM‐III‐R dementia was studied in 406 persons aged 60 years or more from three sources. Psychiatric clinic patients (N=177) were diagnosed using standard clinical procedures, laboratory tests and psychological tests; in residential home elderly (N=128) consensus diagnoses were reached by two psychiatrists after joint interviews using the CAMDEX (Roth et al. , 1988) including physical examinations but without laboratory tests; and members of psychiatric patients' families (N=101) were diagnosed after a brief psychiatric interview and assessment of activities of daily living by one psychiatrist. At the cutoff point of 24/23 of MMSE‐K score, sensitivity was 92.0% and specificity 91.5%. 23.9% of demented people and 39.3% of non‐demented obtained similar scores between 20 and 26. With the introduction of the arbitrary criteria of ‘questionable dementia’ (MMSE‐K score 21‐24) the false positive rate was reduced to 1% and the false negative rate to 3%. 74% of males with ‘questionable dementia’ scores were clinically demented while only 12% of females with the same scores were demented.