Characterising omission errors in everyday task completion and cognitive correlates in individuals with mild cognitive impairment and dementia

Abstract

Objective: Functional ability declines with age and cognitive impairment. This study investigated errors of omission made by community-dwelling older adults completing everyday tasks in a naturalistic setting. Method: Sixty-five cognitively healthy older adults (HOA), 19 individuals with single domain mild cognitive impairment (sdMCI), 33 individuals with multi-domain MCI (mdMCI) and 13 individuals with dementia completed measures of memory, processing speed, working memory and executive functioning, as well as eight different activities of daily living in a naturalistic environment. Task steps were divided into preparatory, action-oriented, and concluding steps. Results: For action-oriented steps, the number of omission errors increased with level of cognitive impairment beyond sdMCI (i.e., HOA = sdMCI < mdMCI < dementia). In contrast, for preparatory and concluding steps, the dementia group committed more omission errors than the HOA, sdMCI, and mdMCI groups, which did not differ. Conclusions: The results suggest that the more complex and integrative action-oriented steps may be the first type of everyday task step to be affected in the process of cognitive decline, with preparatory and concluding steps being preserved longer and only showing decline in later stages of impairment (i.e., dementia). Individuals with sdMCI may use other intact abilities to compensate for task omission errors.

Smartphone-Based Experience Sampling in People With Mild Cognitive Impairment: Feasibility and Usability Study

“…This study is unfortunately not able to statistically explore activity patterns in people with MCI, but future research might follow up on this idea. Research shows that complex tasks are affected early on in the process of cognitive decline [ 53 ], and cognitive difficulties may decrease the ability of individuals with MCI to work [ 54 ]. Our understanding of necessary adjustments and ways to support working, particularly employment, when living with MCI are limited [ 55 ], but the insights gained from the participants in this study highlight the need to study working and employment as a potential stressor in this population further.…”

The Usefulness of Evaluating Performance of Activities in Daily Living in the Diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Disorders

“…It was consistently found that a greater cognitive impairment was associated with increased levels of functional dependency. Several studies showed a significant relationship between everyday functioning and memory [ 32 ], executive functioning [ 33 , 34 ], complex reasoning [ 35 ], and global cognition [ 36 ]. An explanation of the cognitive correlates of functional status found that the variance in daily functioning that could be specifically attributed to cognition was modest.…”

Higher-Level Executive Functions in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Systematic Review

“…Fifteen studies did not report any significant difference between groups [21,23,24,51,78,79,84,85,90,100,102,103,105,110,111,112]. One study [48] performed three tests to assess planning ability and observed a worse performance in MCI in only two of them (Action Program Test and Zoo Map Test).…”

“…Thirteen studies used "CLOX-1" or "Clock Drawing Test (CDT)" [51; 78, 79, 84, 85, 89, 95, 100, 102, 108, 110, 111, 112]; two studies used the "Wisconsin Card Sorting Test -Computer Version (WCST -CV)" [76][77]; ten studies used the "Tower of London (TOL)" [23,28,41,49,68,69,86,87,90,91], six studies used "Zoo Map Test" [24,48,59,93,94,106], two studies used "Tower of Hanoi (TOH)" [31,103]; one study used "Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM)" [21]; one study used "Tower Test (D-KEFS)" [66]; one study used "Groton Maze Learning Test" [83]; one study used "Trail Making Test (B-A)" [109]; one study used "Porteus Maze Test" [109]; one study used "Verbal Fluency Test (fruits and animals version)" [109]; one study used "Action Program Test" [48]; and one study used "Key search Test" [48].…”