On the impact of age, gender and educational level on cognitive function in Alzheimer’s disease: A quantitative approach

Abstract

BackgroundThe Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) test is a brief and useful tool widely utilized to measure dementia severity. The effects of education, age and gender on the total MMSE scores are less well-understood. Also, there are few studies about cognitive domains involvement in Alzheimer’s disease and the effects of demographic factors on it. The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between seven areas of cognitive function in the MMSE test with age, gender and education level. MethodsIn this study, 182 patients with Alzheimer (125 women and 57 men) were evaluated. We investigated the impact of age, sex and education on total score of MMSE and each areas of cognitive function. The results were analyzed by MATLAB software. ResultsThe most cognitive domain that was impaired in the MMSE test was orientation to time. Moreover, the most involved cognitive areas based on age, gender and educational level were recall, orientation to place and language, respectively. ConclusionWe found that there were meaningful correlations between the demographic factors and subsets of the MMSE score.