Evaluating the real-world representativeness of participants with mild cognitive impairment in Canadian research protocols: a comparison of the characteristics of a memory clinic patients and research samples

Abstract

Background
 Studies of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) employ rigor­ous eligibility criteria, resulting in sampling that may not be representative of the broader clinical population.
 Objective
 To compare the characteristics of MCI patients in a Calgary memory clinic to those of MCI participants in published Canadian studies.
 Methods
 Clinic participants included 555 MCI patients from the PROspective Registry of Persons with Memory SyMPToms (PROMPT) registry in Calgary. Research participants in­cluded 4,981 individuals with MCI pooled from a systematic literature review of 112 original, English-language peer-reviewed Canadian studies. Both samples were compared on baseline sociodemographic variables, medical and psychiatric comorbidities, and cognitive performance for MCI due to Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
 Results
 Overall, clinic patients tended to be younger, more often male, and more educated than research participants. Psychiatric dis­orders, traumatic brain injury, and sensory impairment were commonplace in PROMPT (up to 83% affected) but > 80% studies in the systematic review excluded these conditions. PROMPT patients also performed worse on global cognition measures than did research participants.
 Conclusion
 Stringent eligibility criteria in Canadian research studies ex­cluded a considerable subset of MCI patients with comorbid medical or psychiatric conditions. This exclusion may con­tribute to differences in cognitive performance and outcomes compared to real-world clinical samples.

Validating the Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist in a Cognitive Clinic: Comparisons With the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire

“…PROMPT was established in 2010, with participants consenting use of the data captured in routine clinical care such as measures of cognition, behavior, and function. This registry has been utilized in research on caregiver burden, prevalence, and impulse dyscontrol in MBI 25 , 26 ; comparisons of research and clinical cohorts with MCI 27 ; and the impact of COVID on dementia care and well-being for patients and caregivers. 28 This is a cross-sectional study design analyzing baseline scores.…”