[Disorder profile in the Mini-Mental State Examination in patients with mild cognitive impairment].

Introduction: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a condition that can act as a risk factor for the development of dementia.

Aims: Our objective was to determine the profile of performance in the MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination) in patients with MCI.

Patients And Methods: We studied the performance in the MMSE of 117 patients who satisfied the diagnostic criteria for MCI. The means and standard deviations (SD) were calculated and the sample was stratified according to the total score obtained in the MMSE; performance in each area of the MMSE was analysed for each group.

Results: Mean performance in the MMSE was 27.87, with a range of 23 to 30, and a SD of 1.75. The most compromised areas were memory and attention; there were mild alterations in temporal orientation. The ability to copy figures was seen to be affected in the groups with the best performances and this was maintained and increased slightly in the most affected levels.

Conclusions: The mean value obtained is very similar to that of the most recent studies and is above the cut score for the MMSE for schooled populations (25/26). Our study reaffirms the idea that the MMSE is not sensitive to the early stages of impairment. The most strongly involved areas are memory and attention. We discuss the visual-praxis disorder that was found, and assigned to the structure of the MMSE and the bias inherent in the sample, with no confirmable incidence of schooling.