UC Santa Barbara

The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was created by Marshal Folstein et al. in 1975 as an instrument for brief (5-10 min) assessment of mental status in hospitalized patients. It is considered the most widely used test for standardized cognitive assessment in the clinical setting, especially with the elderly population. It has countless translations in different languages, and according to the different international (PubMed) and regional (SciELO, Redalyc, and Dialnet) scientific databases, it has been widely used by the scientific community. This article describes the historical evolution of the MMSE, highlights its evaluative properties, and provides bibliometric data on its impact on scientific publications, with a special focus on Ibero-America.