Abstract
Aims : Our aim is to estimate the prevalence of apathy and examine neuropsychological features in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects in community. Methods : We enrolled 368 community dwellers aged 75 years or more, who lived in Kurihara, Miyagi, and we obtained informed written consent from 200 subjects. One hundred eighty-nine of 200 subjects completed clinical examination, neuropsychiatric tests, and apathy assessment. We used the Clinical Assessment for Spontaneity Part 1 (CAS 1) to assess apathy. Healthy (Clinical Dementia Rating ; CDR 0) was 52, MCI (CDR 0.5) was 108, and dementia (CDR 1 + ) was 29 subjects. Analysis 1. Estimate of the prevalence of apathy in community-dwelling elderly. Analysis 2. Neuropsychological features in MCI subjects with apathy. Results : 1. In all subjects completed CAS1, 54.5 % of all subjects had apathy. There was significant difference among 3 CDR groups (p < 0.001) . 2. There were significant CDR effects in memory tasks between the healthy elderly and the MCI groups (p < 0.001) , but no apathy effects. There was significant correlation between CAS1 and WMS-R Logical Memory I (p = 0.001) . Conclusions : There were no neuropsychological differences between MCI subjects with and without apathy, but it is suggested that apathy of MCI subjects is related to encoding memory.
