Comparison of Mini-Mental State Examination (mmse) and Bangla Mini-Mental State Examination (Mmse-B) among Healthy Elderly in Bangladesh

Objective: The aim of the present study was to compare the efficacy of modified Bangla version of mini mental state examination (MMSE-B) with mini mental state examination (MMSE) for using among Bangladeshi healthy elderly.Methods: This is a descriptive type of observational study carried out in Department of Neurology, Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka, from January to December of 2013. A total of 200 healthy elderly (patient attendants at the clinic) who met the inclusion criteria, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire containing information on age, sex, residence, educational backgrounds and questions set at MMSE English version (MMSE-E) and modified Bangla version for MMSE-B (Figure-1). MMSE and MMSE-B both were applied in 1:1 ration. The literate people were asked whether they are comfortable to answer in English (MMSE-E) or they would like the translated form and we applied the form of MMSE (MMSE-T) according to their wish. But in other group of people the modified Bangla version (MMSE-B) was used irrespective of level of education.Results: The mean age at presentation was 58.1±7.8 and 94% were within 50-70 years of age. Male were more common (80, 66) in both the groups and most of them belonging to rural areas. MMSE-B were mostly employed on people having only primary level of education (up to class five, n=80) or no education (n=2), whereas MMSE-E were employed up on people having a level of education higher than class five (n=96). Every question in each item of cognitive domain correlated well (correlation co-efficient range from 0.801- 0.971) except the 7th (correlation co-efficient 0.418) which had higher mean score for MMSE-B than those of MMSE-E (0.90 versus 0.54). The mean score of MMSE-B was greater than the mean score of MMSE-E for most of questions except the 1st question that is related to orientation of time. The mean of total score in MMSE-E and MMSE-B were 24.04 and 24.91 respectively with a correlation co-efficient of 0.940.Conclusion: MMSE-B is comparable to MMSE and it is even better in some segments of cognitive assessment for using among Bangladeshi people irrespective of level of education.J Dhaka Medical College, Vol. 24, No.1, April, 2015, Page 30-35