Cross-cultural and multi-ethnic dementia evaluation by mental status and memory testing.

Two studies investigated aspects of cross-cultural dementia evaluation. The first explored consequences of using different mental status tests; the second compared mental status and memory assessments for normal individuals aged 70-79 and 80-89 in Japan and in America. In a dementia screening clinic, scores from the Hasegawa mental status test could be converted to the Blessed scale without influencing patient classification (impaired vs. unimpaired). Younger subjects were slightly superior to older subjects in mental status in both comparison groups. Both Japanese groups performed better on the memory test than even the younger American group.