Association of Anxiety Awareness with Risk Factors of Cognitive Decline in MCI

Abstract

Studies demonstrate that anxiety is a risk factor for cognitive decline. However, there are also study findings regarding anxiety incidence among people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which mostly examined general anxiety evaluated by subjective questionnaires. This study aimed to compare subjective and objective anxiety (using autonomic measures) and anxiety as a general tendency and anxiety as a reaction to memory examination. Participants were 50 adults aged 59–82 years who were divided into two groups: MCI group and control group, according to their objective cognitive performance in the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Objective changes in the anxiety response were measured by skin conductivity in all tests and questionnaires. To evaluate subjective anxiety as a reaction to memory loss, a questionnaire on “state-anxiety” was used immediately after completing memory tests. Our main finding was that although both healthy and memory-impaired participants exhibited elevations in physiological arousal during the memory test, only healthy participants reported an enhanced state anxiety (p = 0.025). Our results suggest that people with MCI have impaired awareness of their emotional state.

Why don't people with MCI approach memory clinics? The role of awareness in medical help-seeking

“…It should be taken into consideration that the issue of awareness among MCI participants is complicated: studies assessing cognitive awareness among MCI are not conclusive, varying from reporting on intact memory awareness to anosognosia of their cognitive deficits ( 14 – 17 ). Comprehension of the emotional awareness among MCI is also limited, but only a few studies refer to this matter ( 12 , 18 , 19 ). We suggest that among individuals with MCI, the factor distinguishes between help seekers and non-help seekers is the ability to be aware of their cognitive deterioration and to their anxiety from this decline.…”

“…However, recent studies found that participants with MCI may exhibit reduced awareness of the memory deterioration and their emotional state: regarding cognitive awareness, it was found that MCI participants exhibit poor awareness of their episodic memory abilities ( 11 ). Another study demonstrated reduced emotional awareness among MCI individuals ( 12 ). The latest compared objective and subjective measures of anxiety by assessing changes in skin conductivity (as an indication of objective anxiety) while administering memory task.…”

The Concept of Advanced Multi-Sensor Monitoring of Human Stress

“…It has been found that skin becomes a better conductor of electricity for a while after exposure to external stimuli [ 2 , 5 , 23 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 ]. EDA methodology is based on innervation the sweat glands in the skin by sympathetic nerves, which control the synthesis of sweat and its excretion [ 81 , 89 ].…”

The Prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment Among the Elderly Population based on Spatio-temporal Data in the Yangtze River Delta Region of China

“…At the same time, we found that the prevalence of MCI in the elderly without a spouse (including unmarried, widowed, divorced, and separated elderly) was higher than that of the elderly with a spouse. This may be related to the long-term lack of communication in the elderly, leading to emotional anxiety and depression [48][49][50].…”