Comparison of cognitive performance in mild cognitive impairment and dementia patients with that in normal children and adults

Abstract

It is well known that there is rapid cognitive development in childhood and cognitive decline during aging, but the volume of these changes using the same clinical tool is not well documented in the literature. The aim of our study was to investigate and compare the cognitive performance of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia patients with that of children, adolescents and adults, using a worldwide screening tool, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), and considering the age, educational level and mental status of the participants. Our sample included 1364 Greek participants and consisted of normal children, adolescents, adults and non-demented, MCI and demented elderly participants. The variables of age, education and mental status influenced the participant's performance in the MMSE, but sex did not. The smallest variance of the MMSE score was found in 16-18-year-old adolescents, a big variance was found in 7-8-year-old children, while the biggest was in 71-90-year-olds. Alzheimer's disease (AD) participants performed poorer than the 7-8 years old children, though MCI participants showed similar cognitive performance to that age-group. The participants with 7-9 years of schooling and those with more than 9 years had no significant difference in their MMSE performance. Comparing cognitive performance between subgroups, our results indicated that MCI patients have a similar cognitive performance to that of 7-8-year-old children and AD patients' a poorer one than that group. The significant years of cognitive decline in aging are the 56(th) year, the 66 quinquennium, and the 7(th) and 8(th) decades.