How Well Does the Brief Interview for Mental Status Identify Risk for Cognition Mediated Functional Impairment in a Community Sample?
Timothy S Marks, Gordon M Giles, Muhammad O Al-Heizan and 1 others
PMID 33778475WHAT IT FOUND
The Brief Interview for Mental Status missed 95% of community adults with functional cognition impairment.
It flagged only 4% of the sample, while the Mini-Cog, Menu Task, and MoCA identified far more. Do not rely on it to screen for daily living problems.
Key findings
01The BIMS had very low sensitivity (5%) and high specificity (96%) for detecting functional cognition impairment, missing most affected individuals.
02The BIMS classified only 4.06% of participants as impaired, compared to 29.95% on the Mini-Cog, 36.55% on the Menu Task, and 51.27% on the MoCA.
03The Mini-Cog, Menu Task, and MoCA all outperformed the BIMS in predicting impairment on the Performance Assessment of Self-Care Skills.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was highly educated, predominantly White, and generally healthy, so results may not apply to more diverse or sicker populations. Participants were not selected for having cognitive impairment, so the rate of impairment was lower than in postacute care settings. All tests were given in the same session, which may have influenced performance on later measures. The sample size was small for the statistical models, leading to wide confidence intervals. Administration times were estimated rather than formally recorded.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume a normal BIMS score rules out cognitive impairment. The test missed 95% of participants who had difficulty with daily living tasks, so a passing score does not mean the patient is safe to manage their own care.