Purposes: to characterize the cognitive performance hospitalized adults and elderly patients with no complaints, check the effect of education and age and correlate the results. Methods: cognitive screening was carried out by the Mini Mental State Examination (MEM) and the Verbal Fluency Test, semantics (FVS) and phonological (FVF) in 25 adults and elderly with no cognitive changes complaints admitted in an internal medicine ward. For statistical analyses, the one-way Anova, followed by post hoc Tukey, the bivariate Person correlation and the nonparametric Fisher's tests were used. Results: a high frequency of cognitive impairment and a moderate correlation among the three tests applied were verified. The educational factor influenced the results of the MEM, the FVF and FVS tests, while the age factor significantly influenced the evidence of MEM and FVS. Conclusion: the data demonstrated that cognitive screening in hospitalized patients without related complaints is important, and that age and education are paramount factors in cognitive performance.