Recent research has established that individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) have impaired prospective memory (PM); however, findings regarding differential deficits on time-based versus event-based PM have been less clear. Furthermore, the diagnostic utility of PM measures has received scant attention. Healthy older adults (n = 84) and individuals with aMCI (n = 84) were compared on the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CAMPROMPT) and two single-trial event-based PM tasks. The aMCI participants showed global impairment on all PM measures. Measures of retrospective memory and complex attention predicted both time and event PM performance for the aMCI group. Each of the PM measures was useful for discriminating aMCI from healthy older adults and the time- and event-based scales of the CAMPROMPT were equivalent in their discriminative ability. Surprisingly, the brief PM tasks were as good as more comprehensive measures of PM (CAMPROMPT) at predicting aMCI. Results indicate that single-trial PM measures, easily integrated into clinical practice, may be useful screening tools for identifying aMCI. As PM requires retrospective memory skills along with complex attention and executive skills, the interaction between these skills may explain the global PM deficits in aMCI and the good discriminative ability of PM for diagnosing aMCI.

Several studies have now reported that individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) are impaired on laboratory-based measures of prospective memory (PM). However, the age-PM paradox has revealed that impairment observed in the laboratory does not necessarily reflect functioning in day-to-day life. The current study examined naturalistic measures of PM by comparing participants with aMCI to healthy older adults on experimenter-introduced PM tasks (Experiment 1) and on participants' own, self-generated PM tasks (Experiment 2). Individuals with aMCI were found to be globally impaired on each of the naturalistic measures of PM Strategy use was found to be a distinguishing feature between the two groups with healthy older adults using more written strategies, whereas individuals with aMCI relied more on another person providing a reminder. Also of note was that both groups only used strategies around half the time for their own PM tasks. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for interventions and the day-to-day functioning of individuals with aMCI, a population that is struggling to maintain independence in the community.