This is the first study to objectively measure mental status after WNV infection except for 1 review paper that mentioned a study that performed neuropsychological evaluation of WNV patients while they were hospitalized with acute infection (13 ).
Our findings suggest that measuring mental health status over time is not only important for understanding the patient's well-being, but may also help to elucidate subjective-mismatch situations.
However, that over 90%% of the participants had few or no cognitive limitations (Global Deterioration Scale score of 1 to 3) likely reflects the fact that we included only those who were able to provide reliable self-report, which is a requirement for measuring mental health status directly from the participant.
Again, the SF-36 (or SF-12) was the main instrument used to assess health related QoL, and several studies used other validated instruments measuring mental health and psychosocial status.
The analysis was limited to those who responded to the global QOL items, the items measuring mental or physical health status, and at least one of the MSLSS items (N = 6,932).
The SF-36 Mental Health Component Summary Score was used to measure mental health status [ 21].
However, in one recent study of older persons, Guerette [ 106] found that among several measures of mental status, measures of psychological well-being produced the strongest associations with benzodiazepine use.
However, the MMSE provides a reliable measure of mental status, covering aspects of cognition (in particular, orientation to time and place) that were not measured by the other cognitive tests.
In addition to inverse associations between [F]FDDNP binding and verbal paired associate memory when CN and MCI individuals were combined, [F]FDDNP was also inversely associated with performance on other cognitive measures, including mental status and digit recall, across all groups [ 20].
Ross and colleagues [ 4] examined the ability of injury severity measures, oxygenation, and mental status to predict the need for prolonged ventilatory support in trauma patients.
