The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was developed by Folstein, Folstein, and McHugh in 1975 and became the most widely administered cognitive screening instrument in the world, used in over 300 million assessments. It assesses orientation, registration, attention/calculation, recall, and language/visuospatial function. Despite being largely superseded by the MoCA for MCI detection, the MMSE remains in widespread clinical use for tracking dementia severity, monitoring treatment response, and determining decision-making capacity. The MMSE is copyrighted by Psychological Assessment Resources (PAR) and technically requires a license for clinical use.