Study Finds Biases in Widely Used Dementia Identification Tests

A study published in Neurology Clinical Practice found three brief cognitive tests used to determine the likelihood of dementia may often be inaccurate, reports EurekAlert . The study analyzed the Mini-Mental State Examination, which looks at orientation to time and place and the ability to remember words; the Memory Impairment Screen, which concentrates on the ability to recall words; and Animal Naming, which involves naming as many animals as possible in one minute. For the investigation, 824 participants, average age 82, received full dementia assessments including a physical exam, genetic testing for the APOE gene, psychological testing, and comprehensive memory and thinking tests. Participants were assigned to two groups based on the comprehensive dementia diagnosis, and 35 percent were found to have dementia while 65 percent did not. When the subjects took each of the three quick tests, 36 percent were wrongly classified by at least one test but just 2 percent were misclassified by all three. In one test, those with higher education were more likely to be misclassified as lacking dementia and those with lower education were more likely to be misclassified as having dementia. Older age was another factor for misclassification, while a lack of information on whether a relative or friend rated the participant's memory to be poor also elevated the risk of misclassification.