Subjective memory complaints, neuropsychological performance and psychiatric variables in memory clinic attendees: A 3-year follow-up study

Abstract

The aims were to evaluate the cognitive performance and clinical diagnosis in patients (< 75 years) seeking help for subjective memory complaints, to determine the prevalence of certain psychiatric symptoms and to conduct follow-up examinations. At baseline 41% showed normal cognitive performance (subjective memory impairment; SMI), 37% fulfilled criteria for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 22% were classified as dementia. There were significant associations between the three groups and experiences of psychosocial stress and feelings of anxiety. The proportion of psychosocial stress was significantly higher in SMI vs. MCI and SMI vs.dementia. Feelings of anxiety was significantly higher in SMI vs. MCI. At the threeyear follow-up, 88% of the SMI patients remained stable SMI and 60% of the MCI patients remained stable. There was a significant reduction of psychosocial stress and moderate reduction of feelings of anxiety among the SMI patients. The findings indicate that the risk of patients with SMI developing dementia is small within a three year span. We propose that subjective memory complaints might be influenced by the presence of psychosocial stress and feelings of anxiety disturbing the memory processes and interfering with the patients' evaluation of their memory function.

Early dysfunction of functional connectivity in healthy elderly with subjective memory complaints

“…Studies of brain activity during cognitive tasks note that subjects with SMC present an increase in activity in comparison with the control group (Rodda et al 2009;Rodda et al 2010;Maestu et al 2010;Jessen et al 2010;Elfgren et al 2010;Gallassi et al 2010;Benito-León et al 2010;Luck et al 2010). All these studies have evaluated the spatial or the spatiotemporal profiles of activity, but none of them assess whether the functional connectivity between brain regions was spared or not in subjects with SMC.…”

The Relationship Between Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mood in Older People

“…A number of studies included a small number of participants (Elfgren et al, 2010;Rozzini et al, 2009) and these may not be as representative of the MCI population as studies using larger samples (Goveas et al, 2011;Steenland et al, 2012). The age of participants in the included studies was within the expected range except for one study in which the youngest participants were aged 55.5 years (Dotson et al, 2010).…”

“…This review is concerned with depression/dysphoria and anxiety, and so measurements of these aspects of neuropsychiatric symptoms were considered where information was given. One study referred to 'psychosocial stress' (Elfgren et al, 2010). The term refers to patient reports of experiences of daily stress during the last three months.…”

“…J. McDougall et al, 2006;Rozzini et al, 2009) did not specify the cut-off scores for the neuropsychological tests used. Of the twenty-two studies, ten required a subjective memory complaint in order to classify participants as having MCI (Devier et al, 2009;Elfgren, Gustafson, Vestberg, & Passant, 2010;Hidaka et al, 2012). …”

“…J. McDougall et al, 2006;McIlvane, Popa, Robinson, Houseweart, & Haley, 2008) used the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D;). Four studies (Elfgren et al, 2010;Gabryelewicz et al, 2007;Robert et al, 2006;Zihl, Reppermund, Thum, & Unger, 2010) used the Montgomery Asberg Depression Scale (MADRS). Nine studies used the full version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-30), six studies used the fifteen-item version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15;) two studies (Huddon, Belleville, & Gauthier, 2008;Steenland et al, 2012) used the shortened five-item version (GDS-5) and one study (Ryu et al, 2011) used the Korean version (GDS-K).…”