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P3‐062: Severity of mild cognitive impairment is a predictor of conversion to dementia: The canton ticino study
Author(s) -
Quadri Pierluigi,
Zanda Enrica,
Levorato Alessandro,
Panzeri Stefano,
Meroni Fabiano,
Bonazzi Jacopo,
Tettamanti Mauro,
Lucca Ugo
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2009.04.1138
Subject(s) - clinical dementia rating , dementia , medicine , neuropsychology , population , cognition , gerontology , psychiatry , disease , environmental health
et al. (2008) indicates that there is not. This study investigates the possible role of familiarity deficits in the diagnosis of AD in two samples of participants with a diagnosis of multi-domain mild cognitive impairment with and without amnestic deficit. It is well known that patients with mild cognitive impairment of amnestic type have a considerably greater probability of converting to AD in a short period of time. Methods: Eleven participants with a diagnosis of non-amnestic multi-domain cognitive impairment and 11 amnestic multi-domain amnestic patients were evaluated according to a number of neuropsychological areas, including verbal comprehension and fluency, long-term episodic memory, working memory, symbolic praxis, and visuospatial ability, depression, anxiety, clinical dementia, and basic everyday activities. All of them were tested in a recognition test 6 months later of a previous test in which they were compared with control groups and with patients already diagnosed with AD. In this experimental test, we assess the degree in which participants are able to use perceptual fluency (unconscious repeated presentations of letters) to improve recognition performance. Results: Results indicated that amnestic mild cognitive impaired patients were unable to use familiarity (defined this way) in recognition 6 months after the initial test. Originally, the deficit was specific to the amnestic sample. These patients did show reliably that they were unable to use familiarity, although their cognitive status and the diagnosis remained as mild cognitive impaired, and none of them had converted to AD yet. Conclusions: The deficit in familiarity originally detected in the sample of amnestic mild cognitive patients was present 6 months later at the same level than in the original test. None of them have converted yet to AD. These results are positive and indicate that familiarity may be a dimension that needs to be taken into account in the diagnosis of MCI.