Diagnosing cognitive dysfunction in the elderly: primary screening tests.

The recognition of cognitive disturbances in geriatric patients has important clinical implications for the primary care physician. Commonly seen cognitive dysfunctions include dementia, pseudodementia, delirium, and frontal lobe syndrome; these may be confounded by overlapping depression. The cognitive examination covers such intellectual and behavioral functions as attention, memory, and language. As many psychiatric disorders result from neurologic brain disease, a psychiatric examination is essential. Mental status questionnaires are useful for screening of high-risk populations for dementia and to quantify the degree of cognitive dysfunction for purposes of management planning and surveillance.