The most commonly used and studied test, which has
acceptable accuracy is the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE)
Its sensitivity varies from 71% to 92% and specificity
ranges from 56% to 96% depending on the cutoff point
used for an abnormal test. Other screening tests are promising
and need further study.3 The Thai version of the MMSE is
MMSE-Thai 2002 which was validated in people aged >60
years. It is currently the most commonly used tool and provides
different cutoff points based on educational level.10 The sensitivity
in illiterate people, 6 years of education or lower, and
higher than 6 years of education was 35.4%, 56.6%, and
92%, respectively. The specificity of this test among these people
was 76.8%, 88.9%, and 91.2%, respectively. The MMSEThai
2002 takes about 10 to 20 minutes to be administered in
50% of administrators.10 Basically, the MMSE was developed
in an English-speaking population, with versions in other languages
mostly using direct translation rather than a culturally specific edition; therefore, some questions within the MMSE
are difficult to understand and several limitations of the MMSE
including educational level, cultural background, age, language,
and some important cognitive domains, such as frontal
lobe function, have not been assessed.