[Dementia screening in routine clinical practice. A comparative analysis of MMSE, SIDAM and ADAS]

Dementia-screening in clinical routine requires short, sensitive and specific tools. A number of standardized instruments are available for this purpose. The present study analysed the relationship between size of three exemplary dementia-screening tests and their diagnostic accuracy. The Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE), the Structured Interview for the Diagnosis of Dementia of the Alzheimer-type, Multiinfarct Dementia and Dementias of other Aetiologies according to ICD-10 and DSM-III-R (SIDAM) and the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS) were applied to 71 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer-type and 73 non-demented controls. A ROC-analysis revealed that neither SIDAM nor ADAS differentiated better between demented and non-demented probands than the MMSE. This was also true for patients with mild dementia. In dementia staging the more comprehensive instruments did not surpass the MMSE, too. Due to it's brevity, the MMSE is the preferential screening-instrument for clinical routine.