Investigating the agreement between cognitive assessments of neurologically unhealthy aging

Abstract

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is an intermediate state of cognitive functioning between normal cognitive functioning and dementia, but disordered aging may begin before meeting the diagnostic criteria for MCI (i.e., “at-risk” for MCI). I explored the effectiveness of three neurocognitive assessments, and subjective memory complaints, in identifying older adults (OA) at-risk for MCI. Eight younger adults (age: M = 26.75 years, SD = 5.65) and nine OA (age: M = 62.67 years, SD = 3.08) completed three online tasks that are sensitive to MCI status: the Face Name Associative Memory Exam, the Mnemonic Similarity Task, and the Short-Term Memory Binding Task. Participants also answered, “Do you feel you have memory problems greater than those of your peers?” I found no significant relationship between participants’ performance on the tasks, nor differences in performance between OA with and without subjective-memory complaints. Variability in the performance of healthy and MCI OA prevented clear identification of participants at-risk for MCI; however, two OA performed poorly on all three tasks. My findings provide preliminary evidence that these tasks and subjective memory complaints are not effective at identifying OA at-risk for MCI.