VITAMIN C TREATMENT IMPROVES RECALLING SCORES IN MINI-MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION IN PATIENTS WITH COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

The primary purpose of the current study was to test the hypothesis that vitamin C would improve the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) total score and/or either of its domains. In order to measure the influence of vitamin C on MMSE total scores and its domains, our experimental design consisted of two comparisons of four groups of patients. Firstly, we compared 25 patients who received no treatment with 25 patients who received only vitamin C treatment over four timelines: after 2, 6 and 12 months. Secondly, we compared 25 patients who received normal dementia treatment with 25 patients who received dementia treatment supplemented with vitamin C over the same three timelines. Our statistical analysis demonstrated that there was a significant interaction between the type of treatment and time in terms of MMSE total scores (F(3, 144) = 7.794, p < 0.001 and eta p2 = 0.140) for the dementia treatment dementia treatment plus vitamin C comparison and (F(3, 144) = 2.437, p = 0.049 and eta p2 = 0.048) for the vitamin C no treatment comparison. Across the twelve months of treatment with vitamin C in addition to dementia treatment, patients significantly improved their mean MMSE score in comparison to the group of patients that received only the dementia treatment.