Developed in 1975 by Folstein and colleagues, this short screening test is the most commonly used test to screen for dementia. It consists of eleven questions and is scored out of 30 points. It takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Twenty-four to thirty points is normal, 18 to 23 points is mild dementia, 17 points and below is compatible with severe dementia. It tests orientation, memory, attention, calculation, recall, language, motor function and perception, visuospatial abilities. Its biggest advantage is that it is easy and quick to administer. It is necessary to know the situations where it is false negative and false positive. Mild cognitive impairment, advanced cognitive impairment, frontal lobe dementia, those with low education level and those who do not speak a language well may have false positive results, while those with high education level may have false negative results.
There is a version of theMMSE(MMSE-E) developed by Ertan et al. for illiterate patients. The lowest score that can be obtained from the MMSE-E is 0 and the highest score is 30. The sections of the test are;
- Orientation - Time Orientation - Place Orientation: (5 points) The questions related to this section are "What is the name of our country?", "What is the name of the city we are in right now?", "Which neighborhood are we currently in?", "What is the name of the building-hospital we are currently in?" and "Which floor of the building-hospital are we currently on?".
- Recording Memory: (3 points) This section is the same as the version for trainees. The patient is told 3 different words at 1 second intervals and asked to repeat them immediately afterwards.
- Attention: (5 points) 1 point for each correct day.
- Recall: (3 points) The patient is asked to recall the three words spoken in the recording memory section.
- Language: (8 points) In this section, the "naming", "repetition" and "comprehension" parts of language are the same as in the version for educated people. A series of tasks are given and 1 point is awarded for each correct operation.
- Visual-Spatial Abilities: (1 point) asked to copy the shape.