Abstract

This study analyzed diagnostic validity of K-MMSE, one of the most popular evaluation tools in the clinical setting, and K-MAS to investigate the validity of evaluating residual cognitive problems in traumatic brain injury(TBI) patients. To investigate factors affecting diagnostic capacity of K-MMSE and K-MAS, we analyze the influence of age, education level and severity of brain injury. In study 1, participants were 76 traumatic brain injury patients who visited neuropsychiatry to evaluate residual cognitive problem. Results indicated that K-MMSE score was significantly affected by age and education level but K-MAS wasn't. Besides, K-MAS showed higher sensitivity than K-MMSE in diagnosing brain injury. This result still existed after adopting adjusted cut-off score reflecting influence of age and education level. In study 2, we studied differences of test score among 3 different injury severity groups. The result indicated that K-MMSE could significantly discriminate 3 group(mild/moderate/severe) divided by severity of brain injury. But K-MAS could only discriminate between the mild group and the other 2 groups. Mean score of K-MMSE of mild severity group was above cut-off score for diagnosing brain injury. Finally, the clinical implication and limitation of present study were discussed.