Cognitive scores may identify incident Alzheimer’s disease

Cognitive tests are effective in predicting incident Alzheimer’s disease in patients with subjective cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment, according to a poster presentation at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

“We found that, for patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), neuropsychological measures routinely administered at the first visit to the memory clinic (in particular, tests of global cognition, a measure of delayed episodic memory, and a measure of psychomotor speed) can predict the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia diagnosed at their third visit (or later) to the clinic,” study author Timothy Whitfield, PhD, of University College London, told Healio.

Using clinical assessment data from 328 participants at the Essex Memory Clinic in the U.K. between 2002 and 2019, Whitfield and colleagues predicted AD at visit three and beyond.

The researchers determined that cognitive tests accurately predicted incident AD in patients with subjective cognitive disorder or mild cognitive impairment, helping to identify patients who would benefit most from further investigations.

“The added prognostic value of considering cognitive change (beyond initial scores alone) reflects that each patient is used as ‘their own control’,” Whitfield said. “This makes intuitive sense; whilst initial memory clinic scores are linked to the future risk of AD, worsening scores in an initially high-performing patient may be cause for concern. Conversely, patients who initially present with low scores but do not show decline at their first follow-up might be less likely to develop AD.”