[The neuropsychological profile of mild cognitive impairment with involvement of multiple cognitive areas. The importance of amnesia in distinguishing two subtypes of patients].
BACKGROUND
The use of diagnostic criteria for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that do not require the presence of amnesia enables patients to be classified into three types of MCI: pure amnestic MCI (aMCI), MCI with involvement of multiple cognitive functions and amnesia (mf-aMCI) and MCI with involvement of multiple cognitive functions without amnesia, or non-amnestic MCI (mf-nonaMCI).


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether patients with MCI with involvement of multiple functions (mfMCI) have a different profile of cognitive involvement depending on whether amnesia is present or not.


METHODS
Out of a total sample of 175 patients with MCI, we studied 138 with mfMCI. Of these, 109 (79%) had memory disorders (mf-aMCI) and 29 (21%) did not (mf-nonaMCI). For each group of patients, we determined the percentage who scored below normal in each of the items on the abbreviated Barcelona test.


RESULTS
Patients with mf-aMCI failed more frequently in temporal orientation, naming and semantic category evocation tests. Patients with mf-nonaMCI failed more often in motor praxis and abstraction tests. Differences were statistically significant. Additionally, it was noted that patients with mf-nonaMCI tended to make more mistakes in attention tests.


CONCLUSIONS
The presence of amnesia allows us to identify an mf-aMCI group with a cognitive profile suggesting temporal involvement, unlike the mf-nonaMCI group, whose members have a cognitive profile that suggests subcortical compromise.
Frutos-Alegría
M T
MT
Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, Alicante, Spain. frutos_mte@gva.es
Moltó-Jordà
J M
JM
Morera-Guitart
J
J
Sánchez-Pérez
A
A
Ferrer-Navajas
M
M
D000368:Aged; D000647:Amnesia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies