title: Mild cognitive impairment: Profile of a cohort from a private sector memory clinic.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Private hospital memory clinics might see a different clientele than university or academic institutes due to referral biases.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To characterize the profile of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from a private sector memory clinic.
  
  
  METHODS
  MCI was diagnosed according to revised clinical criteria of Petersen et al. For a subset of patients with MCI medial temporal atrophy and cerebral small vessel disease (white matter lesions and lacunes) were rated on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and analyzed for their contribution towards cognitive impairment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Subjects with MCI formed one-third (113/371) of this memory clinic sample from a private hospital. MCI could be effectively diagnosed and subtyped using a brief cognitive scale (Concise Cognitive Test (CONCOG)). The amnestic MCI (single and multiple domains) subtype comprised the majority of cases with MCI. In a subsample of 33 patients, lacunar infarcts were more common than white matter lesions and hippocampal atrophy and were inversely associated with verbal fluency.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MCI may be more commonly encountered in private hospital settings probably due to early referrals. It is possible to diagnose and subtype MCI using a brief cognitive instrument such as the CONCOG. In this sample, lacunar infarcts were more commonly encountered than medial temporal atrophy in such patients.
authors.affiliation: Consultant Neurologist, Lanka Hospitals, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
authors.forename: Srikanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
keywords: Brief cognitive scale; mild cognitive impairment; private hospital