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The Effects of Age, Education, and Gender on the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale Performance of Elderly Chinese and American Individuals

^a Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
^b Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego

Agnes S. Chan, Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong, China E-mail: aschan{at}psy.cuhk.edu.hk.

Decision Editor: Toni C. Antonucci, PhD

Abstract

A Chinese version of the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS) was administered to elderly individuals in Hong Kong (n = 104), and their performance on the test was compared with that of elderly participants in San Diego (n = 150). Age and education, but not gender, were significantly related to DRS performance in both groups. The effect of education was greater in the Hong Kong than in the San Diego participants, but this difference was eliminated when individuals with no formal education were removed from the Hong Kong group. Age- and education-matched groups of Hong Kong and San Diego elderly individuals differed in the pattern of DRS subtest performance they produced, even when they did not differ in total DRS score. The Hong Kong participants scored significantly higher than the San Diego participants on the Construction subscale, whereas the opposite pattern was observed on the Initiation/Perseveration and Memory subscales. These results suggest that some DRS subscales or individual subscale items may be susceptible to cultural differences between elderly Chinese and American individuals.

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