The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) first appeared in 1975 having been developed as a screening tool for patients with dementia and psychiatric disorders in an inpatient setting.1 Folstein and colleagues did not envisage the global domination that this simple clinical tool would achieve. They clearly state in their seminal paper that ‘the MMS cannot be expected to replace a complete clinical appraisal in reaching a final diagnosis in any individual patient’. But, as frequently happens, this major caveat was quickly forgotten, and, over the course of the next 40 years, this brief 30-item examination gained immense fame among clinicians as a quick and easy method to diagnose dementia. The MMSE is strongly influenced by non-cognitive domains; it does not reliably translate across cultures, as the results are likely to be confounded by language, levels of literacy, and cultural and ethical norms. Despite this, the MMSE has been …