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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Age-related cognitive decline and vision impairment affecting the detection of dementia syndrome in old age | | Author(s) | Friedel M Reischies, Bernhard Geiselmann |
| Journal title | The British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 171, no 5, November 1997 |
| Pages | pp 449-451 |
| Keywords | Mental ageing ; Visual impairment ; Dementia ; Diagnosis ; Evaluation ; Germany. |
| Annotation | The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) is widely used as a screening instrument for dementia, and its diagnostic validity may be lowered in old age by normal age-related cognitive decline. Furthermore, visual impairment, occurring frequently in old age, leads to missing values which prevent an interpretation of the test result. In the Berlin Ageing Study (BASE) of 516 people aged 70-103 years, MMSE and clinical dementia diagnosis, made by a psychiatrist investigating all subjects by the Geriatric Mental State - A and History and Aetiology Schedule interview, were investigated independently. The MMblind was analysed, an MMSE for vision impairment in which all items requiring image processing are omitted. The study sample is population based; dementia cases (DSM-III-R) were excluded on the basis of the clinical diagnosis. Norms are reported for very old age regarding MMSE as well as MMblind. There is a considerable age effect on MMSE scores. In contrast to MMSE, sensitivity and specificity of the shorter MMblind version are not reduced. Thus, the blind version of MMSE seems to be a valid instrument improving the applicability of the MMSE in old age. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980521007 A |
| Classmark | D6: BR: EA: LK7: 4C: 767 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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