The Relation Between Mini Mental State Examination and Multiple Measures of Executive Functioning

Abstract

Given the necessity of executive functioning to perform day-to-day activities, the capacity of widely-used cognitive screening tools to detect potential executive dysfunctions could have important meanings for health care practices. Current research on this topic, however, is still scarce and controversial. The current study is the first of its kind to assess the association between a commonly used cognitive screening tool with multiple executive measures from two wildly used batteries of executive functioning tests. The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) along with the Delis Kaplan Executive Function System (DKEFS) and the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS) were administered to 73 healthy adults aged 16-40 years (M=24.34, SD=6.53). Most of the relations between the MMSE total score and the executive measures were significant and in the moderate-to-strong range. The highest correlation of MMSE was with the BADS total profile score (r= .62, P< .01). In a secondary analysis, among the MMSE domains, the Attention and Calculation domain had the highest relations with the executive measures. As a measure of general cognitive ability, the MMSE taps on various basic- and higher-level cognitive processes interconnected with the multi-dimensional and multi-level executive processing. Thus, empirical separation of executive measures and general cognitive indices is difficult. Using multiple measures of the executive functioning could be an effective strategy to better understanding the interconnections.