Charlie, what do you mean by "serious"?

If she hasn't been diagnosed with a problem yet, and anyone is thinking
she is normal, absolutely, its serious. There is something very, very
wrong with her, and not only does that need exploration and diagnosis,
but some planning for her care. Here is a web site with expected scores
by age and education level for people with intact brains.

On the other hand, if she has an existing condition that has been
recognized by her doctor, diagnosed and treated as much as is possible
(such as a progressive dementia like Alzheimer's), its just a sign
things continue to deteriorate.

Mary

I go with everyone else regarding if she has been previously seen &
diagnosed & treated.  However, mini mental state test is exactly
that--mini---you really need a thorough neuro-psych test.  With my
husband the first one gave us a base line so that the second one was
more significant in showing decline.

Always,

Char

Hi Charlie,

Difficult to say. Usually any score below 10 means "debile". However, as a
neuropsychologist, I am not a friend of MMSE. This scale is rather
unspecific (own experience and public opinion) and should be interpreted
only together with additional diagnostic sources.

Kind regards,
Oliver

We took our LO in friday for her yearly check up and her annual MMST. Her
original score was 17 and that was 3 years ago when our young internist was
insisting we try Aricept & Exelon, both of which just made our LO quit
eating and go to bed. Our LO has vascular dementia after a micro stroke that
took place about 13 years ago. The Dr says she has AD but we have always
thought she had vascular dementia since we've seen very little change since
the stroke that couldn't be considered age related.

The first questions were a total bomb. Didn't know the president, any date
or month, year, season, location, state, county street or otherwise.  When
the Dr asked her to spell "world" backwards she rattled off the correct
spelling instantly which just floored the Dr. She could do the clock and
write a three word sentence. Final score was a 15, down only 2 points in 3
years. Our LO was always an active crossword puzzle solver and although now
she no longer uses the dictionary to do crosswords and just guesses, at
least that part of her mind still works somewhat and her word skills remain
relatively strong. She is often better at Wheel of Fortune than either my
wife or myself. That is "her show" but if you were to ask her the name of
her show she wouldn't know what you were talking about and if we didn't turn
on the TV to the correct station and time, she would never miss not seeing
the show. All short term and portions of long term memory are just gone.

Final diagnosis, very healthy other than constipation, no real changes
despite being almost 90 and her recent refusal to eat at lunch is probably a
"behavior problem" or hardheadedness rather than a decline in function. No
depression found by the Dr.  My wife and I are lucky that the parts of her
mind that worry about things are mostly gone and as long as the schedule
stays the same and she is "visiting" with her daughter, then she is almost
always happy as a clam. By the time we got home all memory of the Dr visit
was long gone. After reading this list for a long time I know how fortunate
we are, if anything related to having dementia can be called fortunate.   AW