Neuropsychological markers of mild cognitive impairment: A clinic based study from urban India

BACKGROUND: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia. Persons with MCI are at higher risk to develop dementia. Identifying MCI from normal aging has become a priority area of research. Neuropsychological assessment could help to identify these high risk individuals. OBJECTIVE: To examine clinical utility and diagnostic accuracy of neuropsychological measures in identifying MCI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study of 42 participants (22 patients with MCI and 20 normal controls [NC]) between the age of 60 and 80 years. All participants were screened for dementia and later a detailed neuropsychological assessment was carried out. RESULTS: Persons with MCI performed significantly poorer than NC on word list (immediate and delayed recall), story recall test, stick construction delayed recall, fluency and Go/No-Go test. Measures of episodic memory especially word list delayed recall had the highest discriminating power compared with measures of semantic memory and executive functioning. CONCLUSION: Word list learning with delayed recall component is a possible candidate for detecting MCI from normal aging.