Experiences of borderline MMSE test?

[nilecrocodile]

My mum has become increasingly concerned in the last year or so about her memory (as have we). She's 'losing words', forgetting whether people have told her something, repeating anecdotes frequently, forgetting how to do certain things etc. She's also become anxious and somewhat irritable, and very reluctant to socialise or take part in activities.

We encouraged her to talk to her GP, as she was getting very worried, which she did. The GP did an MMSE test, on which she scored 24. I've read different things online about the results - some websites say 24 and above is normal, others that anything under 26 suggests mild cognitive impairment.

Anyway, the GP has said she'd like mum to go for blood tests and a fuller assessment. I'm guessing this will be a memory clinic? I'm interested to know whether it's standard to refer on with a score of 24, or whether it depends on the GP, other factors, which questions were answered incorrectly etc?

Also, I'm just interested in others' experiences of a similar result. I realise no one can tell me what will happen in my mum's case, but I'm just trying to prepare myself for the next stage in this process so that I can best support my parents, and wonder whether there's any indication of whether this is more likely to lead to an all-clear, or a dementia diagnosis, or a 'cognitive impairment but not dementia', or a watch and wait...

For my mum, MMSE didn't reflect the level of her impairment, and with the background of what she was struggling with the memory clinic did another test which was targeted at the things that she had issues around and she absolutely tanked that. For mum it was that she had fronto temporal dementia and so things took a different path to 'classic' alzheimers

Hi OP, in my experience (MH nurse with long background in Older adults MH) a mmse in the absence of ‘other’ factors would not be considered a normal result.
Other factors would be things like a pre existing mental health problem such a depression or anxiety, ‘reversible’ dactors such as abnormal bloods (under treated hypothyroidism, low B12, low sodium….. theres a long list). Its also about the pattern of memory issues and what we call word finding difficulties can be a bigger red flag in many cases.
Its scary but so important to know IF there is a dementia emerging as its critical to plan ahead, get support and sometimes medications in earlier rather than later (to slow progression) and maximise physical health. So please encourage your Mum to attend for further tests xx

… sorry meant to say a mmse result of 24!…..

Thank you both so much, that's really helpful. Interesting what you say about the word finding being a bigger red flag. I don't know exactly which questions mum 'failed' on, but I know that one of them was that she couldn't remember the word for 'phone', when shown a picture of one. One of the others was that she couldn't remember the phrase they told her to repeat back at the end.