Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T10:23:02.128Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The influence of education, social class and sex on Mini-Mental State scores

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

D. W. O'connor ,
P. A. Pollitt ,
F. P. Treasure ,
C. P. B. Brook  and
B. B. Reiss
D. W. O'connor*
Affiliation:
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
P. A. Pollitt
Affiliation:
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
F. P. Treasure
Affiliation:
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
C. P. B. Brook
Affiliation:
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
B. B. Reiss
Affiliation:
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr D. W. O'Connor, Hughes Hall, Wollaston Road, Cambridge, CB1 2EW.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The Mini-Mental State Examination was administered to 1865 general-practice patients aged 75 years and over. Even when demented cases were removed from analysis, respondents with relatively little education, together with those in social classes Ill-manual and below, were significantly more likely to score below the cut-off point used in North American community surveys to denote ‘cognitive impairment’. Education and social class influenced scores on all sections within the MMSE with the exception of registration. Sex influenced scores on tests of calculation and spelling backwards but had no effect on total scores. These findings emphasize the importance of investigating low scorers in more detail before making a diagnosis of dementia.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , August 1989 , pp. 771 - 776
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed.APA: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Anthony, J. C., LeResche, L., Niaz, U, Von Korff, M. R & Folstein, M. F. (1982). Limits of the ‘Mini-Mental.State’ as a screening test for dementia and delirium among hospital patients. Psychological Medicine 12, 397–408.Google Scholar
Bergmann, K., Kay, D. W. K., Foster, E. M., McKechnie, A. A. & Roth, M. (1973). A follow-up study of randomly selected community residents to assess the effects of chronic brain syndrome and cerebrovascular disease.In Proceedings of 5th World Congress of Psychiatry, pp. 856–865. Excerpta Medica: Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Copeland, J. R. M., Gurland, B. J., Dewey, M. E., Kelleher, M. J., Smith, A. M. R. & Davidson, I. A. (1987). Is there more dementia, depression and neurosis in New York? A comparative study of the elderly in New York and London using the computer diagnosis AGECAT. British Journal of Psychiatry 151, 466–473.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duncan-Jones, P. & Henderson, S. (1978). The use of a two-phase design in a prevalence survey. Social Psychiatry 13, 231–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escobar, J. I., Burnam, A., Karno, M., Forsythe, A., Landsverk, J. & Golding, J. M. (1986). Use of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) in a community population of mixed ethnicity: cultural and linguistic artifacts. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 174, 607–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. (1975). ‘Mini- Mental State’, a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research 12, 189–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folstein, M. F., Anthony, J. C., Parhad, I, Duffy, B. & Gruenberg, E. M. (1985). The meaning of cognitive impairment in the elderly. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 33, 228–235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gurland, B. J. (1981) The borderlands of dementia: the influence of sociocultural characteristics on rates of dementia occurring in the senium. In Clinical Aspects of Alzheimer's Disease and Senile Dementia (ed. Miller, N. E. and Cohen, G. D.), pp. 61–84. Raven Press: New YorkGoogle Scholar
Holzer, C. E, Tischler, G. L., Leaf, P. J & Myers, J. K. (1984). An epidemiologic assessment of cognitive impairment in a community population. Research in Community and Mental Health 4, 3–32.Google Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., Beamish, P. & Roth, M. (1964). Old age mental disorders in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. II. A study of possible social and medical causes. British Journal of Psychiatry 110, 668–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., Henderson, A. S., Scott, R., Wilson, R.Rickwood, D & Grayson, D. A. (1985). Dementia and depression among the elderly living in the Hobart community: the effect of the diagnostic criteria on the prevalence rates. Psychological Medicine 15, 771–788.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kittner, S. J., White, L R., Farmer, M. E, Wolz, M., Kaplan, E., Moes, E., Brody, J. A. & Feinleib, M. (1986). Methodological issues in screening for dementia: the problem of education adjustment. Journal of Chronic Diseases 39, 163–170.Google Scholar
Kramer, M., German, P. S., Anthony, J. C., Von Korff, M. & Skinner, E. A. (1985). Patterns of mental disorder among the elderly residents of Eastern Baltimore. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 33, 236–245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Magaziner, J., Bassett, S. S. & Hebel, J. R. (1987). Predicting performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination: use of age- and education-specific equations. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 35, 996–1000.Google Scholar
O'Connor, D. W., Pollitt, P. A., Hyde, J. B., Fellows, J. L., Miller, N. D., Brook, C. P. B., Reiss, B. B. & Roth, M. (1989). The prevalence of dementia as measured by the Cambridge Mental Disorders of the Elderly Examination. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 79, 190–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (1980). Classification of Occupations. HMSO London.Google Scholar
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (1981). Small Area Statistics, Cambridge Urban Area. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Parsons, P. L. (1965). Mental health of Swansea's old folk. British Journal of Preventative and Social Medicine 19, 43–47.Google Scholar
Pfeiffer, E. (1975). A Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire for the assessment of organic brain deficit in elderly patients. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 23, 433–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, M., Tym, E., Mountjoy, C. Q., Huppert, F. A., Hendne, H., Verma, S. & Goddard, R. (1986). CAMDEX: a standardized instrument for the diagnosis of mental disorder in the elderly with special reference to the early detection of dementia. British Journal of Psychiatry 149, 698–709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokal, R. R. & Rohlf, F. J. (1981). Biometry, 2nd ed.W. H., Freeman: San Francisco.Google Scholar
Weissman, M. M., Myers, J. K., Tischler, G. L., Holzer, C. E., Leaf, P. J., Orvaschel, H. & Brody, J. A. (1985). Psychiatric disorders (DSM-III) and cognitive impairment among the elderly in a U.S. urban community. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 71, 366–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar