title: Mild cognitive impairment: cognitive screening or neuropsychological assessment?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the neuropsychological profile of mild cognitive impairment subtypes (amnestic, non-amnestic and multiple-domain) of a clinical sample. We further address the diagnostic properties of the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Cambridge Cognitive Examination for the identification of the different mild cognitive impairment subtypes in clinical practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional clinical and neuropsychological evaluation of 249 elderly patients attending a memory clinic at a university hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The performance of patients with mild cognitive impairment was heterogeneous across the different subtests of the neuropsychological battery, with a trend towards an overall worse performance for amnestic (particularly multiple domain) mild cognitive impairment as compared to non-amnestic subtypes. Screening tests for dementia (Mini-Mental State Examination and Cambridge Cognitive Examination) adequately discriminated cases of mild Alzheimer's disease from controls, but they were not accurate to discriminate patients with mild cognitive impairment (all subtypes) from control subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The discrimination of mild cognitive impairment subtypes was possible only with the aid of a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. It is necessary to develop new strategies for mild cognitive impairment screening in clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: Psychogeriatric Clinic and Laboratory of Neuroscience (LIM 27), Department and Institute of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. breno_satler@uol.com.br
authors.forename: Breno Satler
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Diniz
authors.forename: Paula Villela
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Nunes
authors.forename: Monica S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Yassuda
authors.forename: Fernanda S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: Mariana K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Flaks
authors.forename: Luciane F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Viola
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Radanovic
authors.forename: Izabella Dutra de
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Abreu
authors.forename: Danilo T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Borelli
authors.forename: Wagner F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Gattaz
authors.forename: Orestes Vicente
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Forlenza
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D000647:Amnesia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results