Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:08:01.411Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Authors' reply

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Christopher O'Loughlin  and
Jon Darley
Christopher O'Loughlin
Affiliation:
Older People's Mental Health Service, Box 311, OPMHS Office, Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge CB1 5EF, email: c.oloughlin@btinternet.com
Jon Darley
Affiliation:
West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Type
Columns
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 30 , Issue 9 , September 2006 , pp. 354 - 355
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 2006. The Royal College of Psychiatrists

The nature of pragmatic research is to examine clinical practice in the manner it happens - that is both its weakness (for example, not using research-standardised diagnostic interviews or detailed cognitive testing) and its strength. The MMSE has been in use in both clinical and research settings since 1975 as a tool for cognitive assessment and Drs Kripalani and Poongan are correct in stating the unreliability of a single cutoff point for any diagnosis. In our study we examined MMSE scores only of those patients with a diagnosis of dementia, and other than commenting on the rise in total number of referrals made no comment on the underlying referral rate.

We agree with Dr Willis that the MMSE, assuming that it measures an actual underlying ‘cognitive ability’ where the intervals between adjacent scale values are indeterminate, is an ordinal rather than an interval or ratio scale and corresponding tests should be used. We are pleased to note that our data still show a significant move towards earlier referral in dementia.

Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.