Annual conversion to alzheimer disease among patients with memory complaints attending an outpatient memory clinic: the influence of amnestic mild cognitive impairment and the predictive value of neuropsychological testing.
OBJECTIVE
The goals of this study were to determine the annual conversion rate to Alzheimer disease (AD) among patients reporting memory problems, including a subgroup with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), and to investigate the predictive value of neurocognitive testing for future dementia.


METHODS
A prospective study was carried out in an outpatient memory clinic. One hundred and seven patients underwent a clinical examination and completed a battery of standard cognitive tests at study entry and two years later. The conversion rate to clinically manifested AD two years later was investigated and sensitivity, specificity, receiver operating characteristics (AUC), positive predictive value and negative predictive value for each neuropsychological test were determined.


RESULTS
We found an annual rate of conversion to AD of 6.5% among patients reporting memory decline in the setting of our clinic. Specifically, patients with aMCI had an annual conversion rate of approximately 20%. The annual conversion rate for patients reporting memory problems but showing no memory deficit at memory testing was approximately 3%. Receiver operating characteristics (AUC) of the neuropsychological tests ranged from 0.60 to 0.94.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with aMCI have 8.6-fold higher odds of developing AD compared with patients without evident memory impairment on neuropsychological testing. Although the risk of developing AD among patients without objective memory decline is small, some patients in this group still convert to AD and therefore close clinical monitoring of patients is necessary.
Lehrner
Johann
J
University Clinic of Neurology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. Johann.Lehrner@meduniwien.ac.at
Gufler
Renate
R
Guttmann
Giselher
G
Maly
Joachim
J
Gleiss
Andreas
A
Auff
Eduard
E
Dal-Bianco
Peter
P
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000647:Amnesia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001317:Austria / Q000453:epidemiology; D015984:Causality; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D011379:Prognosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity