MILD BEHAVIORAL IMPAIRMENT AS A PREDICTOR OF COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING IN OLDER ADULTS

Abstract

Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) was coined to describe individuals who have neuropsychiatric symptoms before they meet clinical criteria for mild cognitive impairment or dementia. Individuals with MBI are found to be at greater risk of dementia compared to those without these symptoms, therefore identifying how MBI might relate to different domains of cognition is of key importance, as it may help us to identify which individuals are at even greater risk for future cognitive impairment. Secondary data analysis of a sample (n=291) of cognitively healthy older adults from the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center who are presenting with MBI, as defined by decreased motivation, affective dysregulation, impulse dyscontrol, social inappropriateness, or abnormal perception or thought content. Cognitive abilities, specifically executive function, attention, short-term memory, and episodic memory, were compared using a battery of neuropsychological assessments. Individuals with MBI performed significantly worse on tasks associated with attention. Significant differences on tasks of attention were also found for only individuals who had decreased motivation or affective dysregulation. Persons with decreased motivation were found to perform worse on tasks associated with executive function and short-term memory, where individuals with affective dysregulation were found to perform worse on tasks of short-term memory. Finally, those with social inappropriateness performed worse on a task associated with episodic memory. The present study found evidence that cognitively healthy individuals with MBI are more likely to experience greater changes in attention compared to individuals without MBI. Further, decreased motivation and affective dysregulation is associated with worse performance on multiple domains of cognition, where social inappropriateness was found to only be associated with worse performance in one domain, and impulse dyscontrol and abnormal perception or thought content was found to be associated with none.