A Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire for the Assessment of Organic Brain Deficit in Elderly Patients†

Bibliographic Data

ID23367704
AuthorsEric Pfeiffer (Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development Durham North Carolina, corresponding author)
Year1975
Volume23
Issue10
Pages433-441
Publication date1975-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Geriatrics Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-8614 • E-ISSN: 1532-5415
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1532-5415.1975.tb00927.x
PMID1159263
OpenAlexW2024501220
LanguageEN
Citations received403
References cited8

Clinicians whose practice includes elderly patients need a short, reliable instrument to detect the presence of intellectual impairment and to determine the degree. A 10‐item Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ), easily administered by any clinician in the office or in a hospital, has been designed, tested, standardized and validated. The standardization and validation procedure included administering the test to 997 elderly persons residing in the community, to 141 elderly persons referred for psychiatric and other health and social problems to a multipurpose clinic, and to 102 elderly persons living in institutions such as nursing homes, homes for the aged, or state mental hospitals. It was found that educational level and race had to be taken into account in scoring individual performance. On the basis of the large community population, standards of performance were established for: 1) intact mental functioning, 2) borderline or mild organic impairment, 3) definite but moderate organic impairment, and 4) severe organic impairment. In the 141 clinic patients, the SPMSQ scores were correlated with the clinical diagnoses. There was a high level of agreement between the clinical diagnosis of organic brain syndrome and the SPMSQ scores that indicated moderate or severe organic impairment.

Activities of daily living · Environmental health · Medical diagnosis · Organic brain syndrome · Population · Psychiatry · Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research · Medicine · Gerontology

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