Problem solving ability in patients with mild cognitive impairment.
OBJECTIVE
It is important to determine which patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are at risk for progression to dementia. The presence of mild impairments not restricted to the domain of memory may suggest such progression. Our goal is to determine how well a visuospatial problem solving task assessing the cumulative burden of frontal and posterior damage differentiates MCI patients from matched controls.


METHODS
Twenty-six patients with MCI [Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) score of 0.5] and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores of at least 24/30, were compared with 20 age and education level matched controls without cognitive impairment. All patients were given the MMSE, Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT), Boston Naming Test (BNT), Rey Complex Figures copying (RCF), anagrams, and visuospatial problem solving battery (VPS). The VPS is a complex problem solving task, which we predicted would better discriminate patient groups than the relatively simpler tasks.


RESULTS
Differences existed between groups on most tasks, but logistic regression revealed that the VPS discriminated the 2 groups better than the other nonmemory cognitive tests.


CONCLUSIONS
The VPS, a problem solving task assessing the cumulative burden of frontal and posterior damage is more sensitive for detecting nonmemory impairments in MCI than other tasks. Future research will be needed to determine if impairment in the VPS is a sensitive predictor of progression to dementia or treatment response.
Beversdorf
David Q
DQ
Department of Neurology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. david.beversdorf@osumc.edu
Ferguson
Jennifer L W
JL
Hillier
Ashleigh
A
Sharma
Umesh K
UK
Nagaraja
Haikady N
HN
Bornstein
Robert A
RA
Scharre
Douglas W
DW
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index