Aims To (1) establish the clinical usefulness of the 10‐item Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT) and the 18‐item Chinese Mini‐Mental Status Examination (CMMSE) for detecting cognitive impairment associated with dementia in the elderly Chinese; (2) determine how the tests' optimal cut‐off scores varied with the patients' educational level and age; and (3) evaluate which was the more accurate test. Methods 151 cognitively‐healthy, community dwelling elderly Chinese subjects and 95 elderly Chinese outpatients with dementia were administered the AMT and CMMSE. Receiver‐Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to determine the tests' optimal cut‐off scores for each of the education‐by‐age subgroups and their areas‐under‐the‐curve were compared non‐parametrically to evaluate which test was more accurate. Results Both the AMT and CMMSE could identify cognitive impairment accurately, but higher cut‐off values were necessary for the younger and more educated cohort, while lower values were adequate for the older and less educated subgroup. The AMT appeared to reach a ceiling effect in the more educated categories. The diagnostic accuracies of the two instruments were statistically equivalent; there was a trend, however, for the CMMSE to be performing better in the more educated subgroups. Conclusions To maximise the diagnostic efficiency of these two clinically useful mental status tests, it is important to adjust their cut‐off scores for the patients' education and age. Though no clear superiority of either instrument was established in this study, we recommend the AMT for patients with 0–6 years of education, whereas for those with greater levels of literacy, we think it better to administer the CMMSE. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

the derivation of age- and education-adjusted normative scores of a selected neuropsychological assessment battery on elderly Chinese people enables a more accurate diagnosis of dementia to be made and may facilitate better international comparisons of this condition. As our subjects are representative of many others from China, these results may serve not only as a local, but also as a regional, reference source.

In this study, the authors (1) validated a concise neuropsychologic assessment battery to identify early Alzheimer disease (AD) in an elderly Chinese population, (2) studied how the level of literacy in this cohort influenced the psychometric test performance, (3) determined the best individual and combination of tests from the battery to detect AD, and (4) compared their results with parallel data from Western and other similar Chinese neuropsychologic studies. The psychometric battery was administered to 155 cognitively healthy elderly Chinese and 72 predominantly mild AD patients. Results showed that the majority of tests in this neuropsychologic battery validly identified early AD in the elderly Chinese subjects. Correct interpretation of test scores required adjustment for patients' educational attainments. Verbal memory, verbal fluency, and visuospatial functioning were the most important diagnostic domains, and this pattern has broad similarities with findings from the West, supporting the transcultural cognitive manifestation of AD.

ObjectivesFew studies have assessed cognitive impairment among healthy people living with HIV (PLWH) who are stable on antiretroviral treatment (ART) in sub‐Saharan Africa.MethodsWe conducted a cross‐sectional study among a random sample of stable adult PLWH from rural Tanzania on ART for more than 1 year and without immunological failure or pre‐existing neurological disease. We evaluated the prevalence and risk factors for neurocognitive impairment (NCI), assessed through neuropsychological tests, functional and depression questionnaires and defined as a mean Z‐score ≤ −1 in two or more cognitive domains.ResultsAmong 243 participants [median age = 44.3 years (interquartile range: 36–52] and 71% female] we found a rate of NCI of 19.3% (95% confidence interval: 14.8–24.8%). Memory and psychomotor domains demonstrated the highest impairment. Independent predictors of NCI were age and self‐reported alcohol use. Other classical risk factors were not associated with HIV‐associated NCI.ConclusionDespite effective ART roll‐out, NCI remained a prevalent condition in this healthy rural Tanzanian population of PLWH on ART. Age and alcohol use were key risk factors.