MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination)

The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), introduced by Folstein, Folstein and McHugh in 1975, is a 30-point structured clinical interview assessing orientation, registration, attention/calculation, recall, language and visuoconstructional ability; it can be administered in 5–10 minutes. Scores of 24–30 are typically classified as normal, 18–23 as mild, 10–17 as moderate and below 10 as severe cognitive impairment. The MMSE was historically the dominant dementia screening tool and remains widely used in clinical practice and trials as a tracking measure, but it has well-documented ceiling effects for MCI detection — sensitivity for MCI is low — and scores are substantially affected by education level, language background and sensory impairment. The MoCA has largely superseded it for MCI screening in research settings, while the MMSE retains utility for staging and longitudinal monitoring of established dementia.