Screening for mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Background. Early detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimera??s disease (AD) is important. Objectives. We manage to investigate whether there are differences among normal persons, MCI subjects, and AD patients in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). We also compare the screening accuracy of a number of cognitive and non-cognitively oriented instruments on normal subjects or cognitively impaired patients who are with MCI or AD. Method. The screening tests were administered together with the diagnostic Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale to 88 normal subjects and 56 cognitively impaired patients (CDR a?Y0.5) with MCI (CDR=0.5, N=37) or AD (CDR=1 to 2, N=19), and compared using receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) and area under curve (AUC). Results. MCI subjects performed worse than normal elders but better than AD patients in IADL (P Conclusion. Elders with MCI have decline in IADL. Simpler and briefer informant questionnaires of memory problem and 4IADL are useful to screening for MCI-AD in primary care settings.