Researchers involved in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging reported today that more than 6 percent of Americans age 70 to 89 develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI) every year. Also, the condition appears to affect men and those who only have a high school education more than women and those who have completed some higher education. People with MCI are at the stage between suffering the normal forgetfulness associated with aging and developing dementia, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s disease.
People with MCI have mild problems with thinking and memory that do not interfere with everyday activities, although their forgetfulness is often apparent to them and their friends and family. While not everyone with MCI develops dementia, an estimated 5 to 10 percent do.
About mild cognitive impairment
Symptoms of MCI include:
Difficulty learning and remembering new information
Difficulty solving problems or making decisions
Forgetting recent events or conversations
Taking longer to perform complex or difficult mental activities.
Older women with weaker circadian rhythms, who are less physically active or are more active later in the day are more likely to develop dementia or mild cognitive impairment than women who have a more robust circadian rhythm or are more physically active earlier in the day. That’s the finding of a new study in the latest issue of the Annals of Neurology.
“We’ve known for some time that circadian rhythms, what people often refer to as the “body clock”, can have an impact on our brain and our ability to function normally,” says Greg Tranah, PhD., a scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute – part of the Sutter Health network – and the lead author of the study. “What our findings suggest is that future interventions such as increased physical activity or using light exposure interventions to influence circadian rhythms, could help influence cognitive outcomes in older women.”
The researchers collected data on activity and circadian rhythm from 1,282 healthy women, all over the age of 75, who were taking part in the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures. All the women underwent a series of neuropsychological tests to ensure they had no evidence of cognitive or brain problems. At the end of five years 15 percent of the women had developed dementia and 24 percent had some form of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Those women who had weaker circadian rhythm activity, lower levels of activity, or whose peak level of activity was later in the day, were at highest risk of developing dementia or MCI. [continue reading…]
In this interview, Dr. Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe of Washington State University discusses different types of memory concepts – including semantic memory, episodic memory, prospective memory, source memory, and working memory and how these are affected by dementia and MCI. Greg Lee, the interviewer, is a psychology undergraduate student at the University of Idaho.
