Objective The objective was to study the 2-year outcome of subjects diagnosed as having mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods Two hundred and nine subjects diagnosed as having MCI were examined with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery and followed up after 2 years. Results After 2 years, 34 subjects (16%) were lost for follow-up. Those subjects did not differ significantly in terms of MCI subclassification, MMSE score or age and education. Of the 175 subjects followed up, eight (4.5%) had improved to normal, two with amnestic MCI, one from multiple domains MCI, three with single domain MCI and two without any significant impairment at baseline. Forty-four subjects (25%) had progressed to dementia. Of these, 35 were from the multidomain amnestic group and nine from the multidomain nonamnestic group. The combination of Alzheimer-typical biomarkers (total-s and amyloid beta) and multidomain amnestic MCI was the strongest predictor of progression to Alzheimer's disease, while vascular disease and multidomain amnestic MCI preceded mixed and vascular dementia.Conclusion The results suggest that memory impairment alone, or impairment in any one cognitive domain alone, is a rather benign condition. Impairment in several cognitive domains is associated with a more severe outcome over 2 years. Also, 20% of the subjects who progressed to dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, did not show memory impairment at baseline, which suggests that memory impairment is not always the first symptom of even the most common dementia disorders.

This study examined whether the cognitive profile of subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with vascular disease differs from that of MCI subjects with no vascular disease. Consecutive MCI subjects with vascular disease (n ϭ 60) and matched MCI subjects with no vascular disease (n ϭ 60) were included in the study and were compared with healthy control subjects (n ϭ 60). The neuropsychological assessment comprised tests of speed and attention, episodic memory, visuospatial function, language, and executive function. Control subjects performed significantly better than did both MCI groups on the neuropsychological battery. MCI subjects with no vascular disease performed better overall than did MCI subjects with vascular disease, most clearly on tests of speed and attention, visuospatial function, and executive function. MCI subjects with and without vascular disease exhibited differences, both in terms of overall performance and of cognitive profiles. These differences can be largely explained by deficits in speed and attention and in executive function of the MCI subjects with vascular disease.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is regarded as the prodromal stage of dementia disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD).Objective: To compare the neuropsychological profiles of MCI subjects with normal concentrations of total tau (T-t) and Ab42 in CSF (MCI-norm) to MCI subjects with deviating concentrations of the biomarkers (MCI-dev). MCI-norm (N 5 73) and MCI-dev (N 5 73) subjects were compared to normal controls (N 5 50) on tests of speed0attention, memory, visuospatial function, language and executive function.Results: MCI-norm performed overall better than MCI-dev, specifically on tests of speed and attention and episodic memory. When MCI-dev subjects were subclassified into those with only high T-tau (MCI-tau), only low Ab42 (MCI-Ab) and both high T-tau and low Ab42 (MCI-tauAb), MCI-tauAb tended to perform slightly worse. MCI-tau and MCI-Ab performed quite similarly.Conclusions: Considering the neuropsychological differences, many MCI-norm probably had more benign forms of MCI, or early non-AD forms of neurodegenerative disorders. Although most MCI-dev performed clearly worse than MCI-norm on the neuropsychological battery, some did not show any deficits when compared to age norms. A combination of CSF analyses and neuropsychology could be a step toward a more exact diagnosis of MCI as prodromal AD. (JINS, 2008, 14, 582-590.)

The purpose of this study was to construct a Swedish version of the National Adult Reading Test (NART-SWE), a test for assessment of premorbid IQ, and to investigate its validity and reliability on healthy controls and patients with mild Alzheimer's disease. As Swedish pronunciation rules are fixed, NART-SWE was constructed using loan words. NART-SWE has satisfactory psychometric properties: Inter-rater and retest reliability as well as internal consistency are very high. The NART-SWE demonstrates face validity. In addition, high correlation with IQ was obtained. A significant model emerged when using NART-SWE to predict IQ. Furthermore, no significant differences were observed when comparing performance for healthy controls' with that of patients with Alzheimer's disease on NART-SWE. It does appear that reading of irregular words is intact in mild Alzheimer's disease.