Subjective cognitive complaints and longitudinal changes in memory and brain function.

Abstract

Objective Subjective cognitive complaints are often used in the diagnosis of memory and other cognitive impairment. This study examined whether cognitive complaints are associated with longitudinal changes in cognition and cross-sectional differences in regional brain function during memory performance in 98 participants with a mean age of 75. Method The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) assessed cognitive complaints and mixed effects regression models were used to determine whether mean CFQ scores predicted rates of change in cognitive function over a period of 11.5 years. Results Higher CFQ scores, reflecting increased subjective complaints, were associated with steeper rates of decline in immediate and delayed recall on the California Verbal Learning Test. Voxel-based regression analysis was used to determine the cross-sectional relationship between CFQ scores and regional cerebral blood flow measured by PET during a resting condition and during verbal and figural memory tasks. Higher levels of cognitive complaints were associated with increased activity in insular, lingual and cerebellar areas during memory tasks. Conclusions These findings offer some support for the validity of subjective cognitive complaints as markers of age related changes in memory and brain activity.

A systematic review of cognitive failures in daily life: Healthy populations

“…Age-related cognitive decline is widely acknowledged as a relatively common phenomenon (Hanninen et al, 1996), but a longitudinal study found that higher failures predicted a steeper-than-usual trajectory of decline in verbal memory function in particular (Hohman et al, 2011). Despite this, there were few differences between the overall number of everyday failures reported by older and younger people (Kramer, Humphrey, Larish, Logan, & Strayer, 1994;Lange & Süß, 2014;Reese & Cherry, 2006), and one study found that older people actually reported fewer slips (Mecacci & Righi, 2006).…”

“…Even healthy ageing appears to be associated with decline in specific types of cognitive functions, such as those involving the demand for recall (Hohman, Beason-Held, Lamar, & Resnick, 2011;Rast, Zimprich, Van Boxtel, & Jolles, 2009). However, increased awareness of dementia means middle-aged and older people are experiencing more anxiety about normal cognitive decline, a phenomenon known as 'dementia worry' (Kessler, Bowen, Baer, Froelich, & Wahl, 2012).…”

“…The factor of forgetfulness increases with age, whilst distractibility suddenly decreases in the mid-60s. Hohman, Beason-Held, Lamar, & Resnick (2011) 1 98 adults with mean age 75 followed over mean 11.5 years.…”

Mild cognitive impairment and progression to dementia of Alzheimer's disease

“…23 The standardized application of tests to elderly individuals with cognitive complaints is a manner of rendering the concept of cognitive impairment both valid and reliable. 38 …”

Psychosocial working conditions and cognitive complaints among Swedish employees

“…Most of these studies on the relation between cognitive complaints and cognitive functioning have been made on elderly [20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31], while population studies on non-elderly adults are few with mixed results [32,33,34,35,36]. This in addition to methodological issues regarding measures of cognitive functioning in these studies make it difficult to draw any clear conclusions.…”