Crosswalk between the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS-27/30/40).

BACKGROUND: We develop a crosswalk between the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS)-27, TICS-30, and TICS-40 for adults 65 years and older.

METHODS: We examined the scores of 1809 participants, with and without cognitive impairment, who completed the MMSE and the TICS assessment in the 2016 Health and Retirement Study and the 2016 Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol study. Crosswalks between MMSE and TICS-27/30/40 were developed via equipercentile equating.

RESULTS: We present crosswalks for MMSE and TICS-27/30/40 for the 65+ population representative of the US elderly. While monotonic, the pattern of the TICS-30 to MMSE crosswalk differs from the other two crosswalks (MMSE to TICS-27/40).

CONCLUSION: Our analysis offers an empirical crosswalk between two commonly used cognitive measures-the MMSE and TICS. Our findings suggest the need for validated and robust measures that allow for the comparison of scores on different cognitive scales.