Neuropsychological assessment of psychogeriatric patients with limited education

Traditional published norms for neuropsychological tests that do not consid er demographic effects can lead to spuriously high false positive rates amo ng low-educated elderly individuals. This problem may be compounded when tr ying to identify dementia in psychogeriatric patients whose cognitive funct ioning is also compromised by psychiatric illness. This study investigated the clinical utility of low education neuropsychological test norms to disc riminate amongst demented and nondemented psychogeriatric inpatients and he althy community elderly with limited education. Results indicated that the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (MDRS), the Fuld Object Memory Evaluation (FOM E), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and a Clock drawing task had high discriminability in differentiating the three groups. Application of d emographically corrected norms has important implications for diagnosis and treatment planning, especially when neuropsychological status is complicat ed by psychiatric illness.