This study aimed at analyzing and comparing the psychological characteristics of the elderly women with and
without dementia appearing in their responses to the Tree Drawing Test (TDT), and investigating a possibility
of the TDT as a complementary tool for a psychological examination of dementia. The research subjects were
the elderly women at the age of over 65 years and residing in the A city with, 53 with a diagnosis of
dementia, and 205 with no dementia diagnosis. The TDT and K-MMSE were used as measurement tools, and
cross analysis was performed to analize the data using the SPSS 19.0 program. The results are as follows. First,
the response characteristics in the formal analysis showed significant differences in the tree size, horizontal lines,
vertical position, horizontal position, entire space structure and general pen pressure. Second, the response
characteristics in the content analysis revealed significant differences in the shape of stems, border of stems, the
number of branches, shape of the crown, root, the bark of trees, special trees and depiction of surrounding
environments. These results suggest that the TDT can be utilized to measure the psychological characteristics of
elderly women to predict a possible diagnosis of dementia, and thus become a complementary tool for a
psychological examination for dementia in elderly women.