Mild cognitive impairment: a history and the state of current diagnostic criteria

ABSTRACTBackground:Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a diagnostic classification used to describe patients experiencing cognitive decline but without a corresponding impairment in daily functioning. Over the years, MCI diagnostic criteria have undergone major changes that correspond to advancements in research. Despite these advancements, current diagnostic criteria for MCI contain issues that are reflected in the research literature.Methods:A review of the available MCI literature was conducted with emphasis given to tracing MCI from its conceptual underpinnings to the most current diagnostic criteria. A clinical vignette is utilized to highlight some of the limitations of current MCI diagnostic criteria.Results:Issues are encountered when applying MCI diagnostic criteria due to poor standardization. Estimates of prevalence, incidence, and rates of conversion from MCI to dementia reflect these issues.Conclusions:MCI diagnostic criteria are in need of greater standardization. Recommendations for future research are provided that could potentially bring more uniformity to the diagnostic criteria for MCI and, therefore, more consistency to the research literature.

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‘Have you ever talked to any women with Turner syndrome?’ Using universal design and photo elicitation interviews in research with women with mild cognitive impairment

Methodological Innovations ◽

10.1177/2059799119841933 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 205979911984193

Author(s):

Kriss Fearon

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Turner Syndrome ◽

Research Design ◽

Research Method ◽

Universal Design ◽

Research Process ◽

Research Literature ◽

Photo Elicitation ◽

Future Research

A growing body of methodological research literature demonstrates the importance of adapting research design to address the specific needs of participants from minority groups. The aim is to treat participants more respectfully during the research process and to enhance participation, ensuring the findings more closely reflect participants’ views and experience. However, there is an absence of work examining the needs of research participants with Turner syndrome, a chromosome disorder linked with mild cognitive impairment and its potential impact on research interviews. This article draws on a study of reproductive decision-making in women with Turner Syndrome and mothers of girls with Turner syndrome to consider ways to improve research access and to make methodological adaptations for this group of participants. There is little qualitative research on the experience of living with Turner syndrome or its associated experience of infertility. Most of the small number of studies that exist do not describe whether the research method was adapted to accommodate the psychosocial features of Turner syndrome. Yet, these features, which include social cognition issues and anxiety, may have an impact on women’s ability to participate fully in a research interview and consequently on the quality of the data. This article fills a gap in research describing the use of adaptions with women with Turner syndrome, which may be of use to researchers and practitioners working with this group. It describes how a novel approach to research adaptations, universal design, was used to identify and incorporate adaptions into the research design, both through the choice of photo elicitation interviews as a research method and through adjustments made at each stage of the research process. It discusses how adaptions worked to overcome barriers to participation and how effective this was, concluding with suggestions for applying this approach in future research.

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Physical activity for cognitive health: what advice can we give to older adults with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment?

Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience ◽

10.31887/dcns.2019.21.1/nlautenschlager ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 61-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Cognitive Decline ◽

Subjective Cognitive Decline ◽

Future Research ◽

Effective Strategies ◽

Specific Advice ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Type Of Exercise

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are common conditions in older age and are associated with an increased risk of future cognitive decline and dementia. As there is currently no effective pharmacological treatment available for SCD and MCI, modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia have received increasing attention in the literature as a focus for clinical trials. Physical activity (PA) is one of the strongest protective lifestyle factors. This clinical review aims to highlight the accumulating evidence about the benefits of PA for SCD and MCI. Whilst there is agreement that at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic PA per week in combination with additional resistance training is necessary to support brain health in people with SCD and MCI, future research is required to help inform specific advice on type of exercise, intensity, “dose” and effective strategies to encourage behavior change.

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Contralateral Delay Activity is not sensitive to cognitive decline in older adults at risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment

10.1101/753392 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Francesca R Farina ◽

Gabija Pragulbickaitė ◽

Marc Bennett ◽

Cian Judd ◽

Kevin Walsh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

At Risk ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

High Risk ◽

Cognitive Decline ◽

Risk Group ◽

Small Sample ◽

Risk Level ◽

Future Research ◽

Contralateral Delay Activity

AbstractContralateral delay activity (CDA) has been proposed as a pre-clinical marker for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). However, existing evidence is limited to one study with a small sample size (n=12 per group). Our aim was to compare CDA amplitudes in a larger sample of low- and high-risk older adult groups (n=35 per group). As expected, behavioural performance decreased as the number of memory items increased, and the low-risk group out-performed the high-risk group. However, we found no differences in CDA amplitudes across groups, indicating that WM capacity increased irrespective of risk-level. These findings suggest that the CDA is not a sensitive marker of MCI risk. More broadly, our results highlight the difficulty in identifying at-risk individuals, particularly as MCI is a heterogeneous, unstable condition. Future research should prioritise longitudinal approaches in order to track the progression of the CDA and its association with cognitive decline in later life.

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A framework and immersive serious game for mild cognitive impairment

Multimedia Tools and Applications ◽

10.1007/s11042-021-11042-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sum-Yuet Joyce Lau ◽

Harry Agius

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Cognitive Decline ◽

Serious Games ◽

Cognitive Rehabilitation ◽

The Elderly ◽

Daily Basis ◽

Research Literature ◽

Physical Rehabilitation ◽

Serious Game

AbstractCognitive decline is common in the elderly. As a result, a range of cognitive rehabilitation games have been proposed to supplement or replace traditional rehabilitative training by offering benefits such as improved engagement. In this paper, we focus on mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an initial stage of cognitive decline that does not affect functioning in daily life, but which may progress towards more serious cognitive deteriorations, notably dementia. Unfortunately, while a variety of serious game frameworks and rehabilitative serious games have been proposed, there is a distinct lack of those which support the distinctive characteristics of MCI patients. Consequently, to optimise the advantages of serious games for MCI, we propose the MCI-GaTE (MCI-Game Therapy Experience) framework that may be used to develop serious games as effective cognitive and physical rehabilitation tools. The framework is derived from a combination of a survey of related research literature in the area, analysis of resident profiles from a nursing home, and in-depth interviews with occupational therapists (OTs) who work with MCI patients on a daily basis. The conceptual framework comprises four sectors that may be used to guide game design and development: an MCI player profile that represents the capabilities of a player with MCI, core gaming elements that support gameful and playful activities, therapeutic elements that support cognitive and physical rehabilitation through tasks and scenarios according to the player’s abilities, and motivational elements to enhance the player’s attitude towards the serious tasks. Together, they provide support for rehabilitation needs and may also serve as a set of comprehensive and established criteria by which an MCI serious game may be evaluated. To demonstrate the use of MCI-GaTE, we also present A-go!, an immersive gesture-based serious game that exploits the framework to enable MCI-diagnosed players to undertake therapeutic tasks supported by an assigned OT. Evaluation with OTs revealed that the immersive game potentially offers more effective support to MCI patients than traditional methods, contributing new possibilities for enhancing MCI rehabilitative training, while a comparative assessment of MCI-GaTE demonstrated that it provides a comprehensive approach not currently offered by state-of-the-art rehabilitative frameworks.

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Physical activity for cognitive health: what advice can we give to older adults with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment?

Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience ◽

10.31887/dcns.2019.21.1/nilautenschlager ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 61-68

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Cognitive Decline ◽

Subjective Cognitive Decline ◽

Future Research ◽

Effective Strategies ◽

Specific Advice ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Type Of Exercise

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are common conditions in older age and are associated with an increased risk of future cognitive decline and dementia. As there is currently no effective pharmacological treatment available for SCD and MCI, modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia have received increasing attention in the literature as a focus for clinical trials. Physical activity (PA) is one of the strongest protective lifestyle factors. This clinical review aims to highlight the accumulating evidence about the benefits of PA for SCD and MCI. Whilst there is agreement that at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic PA per week in combination with additional resistance training is necessary to support brain health in people with SCD and MCI, future research is required to help inform specific advice on type of exercise, intensity, "dose" and effective strategies to encourage behavior change.

Download Full-text