Characteristics of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Northern Japanese Community-Dwellers from the ORANGE Registry.

Yu Kume,Hidetaka Ota,Tomoko Takahashi,Hyuma Makizako,Hiroyuki Shimada,Yuki Itakura,Sangyoon Lee,Tsuyosi Ono

doi:10.3390/jcm8111937

Abstract

A gradually increasing prevalence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is recognized in the super-aging society that Japan faces, and early detection and intervention in community-dwellers with MCI are critical issues to prevent dementia. Although many previous studies have revealed MCI/non-MCI differences in older individuals, information on the prevalence and characteristics of MCI in rural older adults is limited. The aim of this study was to investigate differential characteristics between older adults with and without MCI. The investigation was conducted over one year from 2018 to 2019. Participants were recruited from Akita in northern Japan. Neuropsychological assessments were applied to classify MCI, including the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology Functional Assessment Tool (NCGG-FAT) and the Touch panel-type Dementia Assessment Scale (TDAS) based on the Alzheimer’s disease assessment scale. Our samples consisted of 103 older adults divided into 54 non-MCI and 49 MCI. The MCI group had lower scores of all cognitive items. Our results showed that individuals with MCI had significantly slower walking speed (WS) and worse geriatric depression scale (GDS) compared to non-MCI. In addition, WS was significantly associated with some cognitive items in non-MCI, but not in MCI. Finally, we showed that predictive variables of MCI were WS and GDS. Our study provides important information about MCI in rural community-dwellers. We suggest that older adults living in a super-aging society should receive lower limb training, and avoiding depression in older adults through interaction of community-dwellers may contribute to preventing the onset of MCI.

Highlights

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transitional state of cognition between normal ageing and dementia that may progress to dementia
We confirmed that the MCI group had significantly lower scores or longer required times of all cognitive items including Word Recognition (WR) test, Trail Making Test Version A (TMT-A), B, Symbol Digit Substitution Task (SDST) and type Dementia Assessment Scale (TDAS) scores than the non-MCI group (p < 0.0001) (Table 1)
According to the results of Spearman correlation analysis, walking speed (WS) was associated with some items of cognitive subtests including WR, TMT-A, B, and SDST in the non-MCI group (|r| > 0.30, p < 0.01), but these were not significant in the MCI group except for correlations between cognitive items and Age or Education

Summary

Introduction

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transitional state of cognition between normal ageing and dementia that may progress to dementia. MCI is defined by subjective or objective evidence of cognitive decline greater than expected for the individual’s age and education level but that does not interfere notably with activities of daily life, and the early detection and prevention of MCI are a challenge to prevent dementia in older adults [1]. Some studies show that older adults with MCI compared to individuals without MCI perform more poorly not just on neurocognitive performance, and on complex motor and psychomotor domains [7,8,9], and exhibit greater gait impairment [10,11,12,13,14]. Gait performance of the frailty is associated with cognitive decline and MCI conversion to AD as reported by [9,16]. Investigating close associations between MCI and physical function has important implications for improving diagnostic acuity of MCI and targeting interventions to prevent dementia and disability among older adults

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