Subtle cognitive impairment is associated with subtle instrumental activities of daily living defecits, but not severity of memory complaints in sucjective cognitive decline

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundSubjective cognitive decline (SCD) can be considered as the preclinical manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease. The objective of this study was to examine whether there would be differences of the clinical correlates due to evidence of subtle cognitive imparment (SCI) in inividuals with SCD.MethodOne‐hundred‐and‐fifty‐five individuals with SCD (mean age: 68.18 ± 8.09 years) were included in this study. The participants underwent clinical assessments and completed detailed neuropsychological tests. The functional assessment was performed by the Korean Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scale. Memory complaints were assessed using the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ) consisting of 16 items that describe everyday memory failure.ResultSCD individuals with SCI (n = 20) had lower Mini‐Mental State Examination scores and showed lower performances in the neuropsychological tests than the SCD only group (n = 135). In addition, the SCI group had worse IADL performance than the SCD only group. There were no differenes in depressive symptoms and PRMQ scores between two groups.ConclusionIn SCD individuals, SCI was associated with subtle IADL deficits, but not with the severity of self‐reported memory complaints, compared to the SCD only group. These results suggest that functional assesments would be helpful for the clinical evaluation of individuals with SCD.