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Objectives: Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) is the most common vascular cause of dementia, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate state between dementia and normal cognitive aging. The present study investigated the main imaging features of CSVD on different MCI subtypes in memory clinics. Methods: A total of 236 patients with MCI and 85 healthy controls were included. One hundred nine amnestic MCI-multiple domains (amMCI), 38 amnestic MCI-single domain (asMCI), 36 non-amnestic MCI-multiple domains (namMCI), and 53 non-amnestic MCI-single domain (nasMCI) patients were diagnosed. All participants were evaluated with the cognitive assessments and imaging features including white matter hyperintensity (WMH), enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS), cerebral microbleeds (CMBs), and cerebral atrophy according to a standard procedure. Results: The patients with amMCI, namMCI, and nasMCI had more high-grade basal ganglia EPVS compared with healthy controls, while the percentages of high-grade basal ganglia EPVS in the patients with amMCI were also more than those in patients with asMCI, namMCI, and nasMCI. There were more high-grade centrum semiovale EPVS in patients with amMCI in comparison with all other groups. The patients with amMCI and namMCI had more percentages of severe deep and periventricular WMH and deep CMBs compared with healthy controls. All MCI groups had higher scores of the medial temporal lobe atrophy than healthy controls, whereas the scores of the amMCI group were also higher than those of the namMCI and nasMCI groups. Conclusions: There were varied neuroimaging features of CSVD including cerebral atrophy in different MCI groups, which meant that vascular mechanism contributed to the prodromal stage of dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) is an important health problem in the world.Objective: The present study investigated the validity and reliability of a new version of the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) named the FAB-phonemic (FAB-P).Methods: A total of 76 patients with ADD, 107 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), 37 patients with non-amnestic MCI (naMCI), and 123 healthy controls were included in this study. All participants were evaluated with the FAB-P and the cognitive assessments according to a standard procedure.Results: The global FAB-P scores in patients with ADD were lower than those of patients with aMCI, patients with naMCI, and healthy controls (p < 0.001). Patients with aMCI performed worse than healthy controls (p < 0.001). The interrater reliability, test-retest reliability, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the FAB-P were 0.997, 0.819, and 0.736, respectively. The test could distinguish the patients with mild ADD, aMCI, and naMCI from healthy controls with classification accuracy of 89.4%, 70.9%, and 61.6%, respectively. It could also discriminate between the patients with ADD and aMCI, between those with ADD and naMCI, and between those with aMCI and naMCI with classification accuracy of 73.8%, 83.9%, and 58.0%, respectively. The regression analysis revealed that the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and the Stroop Color Word Test Part C had the greatest contribution to FAB-P score variance.Conclusion: The FAB-P is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating frontal lobe function and can effectively discriminate ADD, aMCI, and naMCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) has become an important health problem in the world. Visuospatial deficits are considered to be an early symptom besides memory disorder.Objectives: The gesture imitation test was devised to detect ADD and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).Methods: A total of 117 patients with ADD, 118 with aMCI, and 95 normal controls were included in this study. All participants were administered our gesture imitation test, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Clock Drawing Test (CDT), and the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR).Results: Patients with ADD performed worse than normal controls on global scores and had a lower success rate on every item (p < 0.001). The area under the curve (AUC) for the global scores when comparing the ADD and control groups was 0.869 (p < 0.001). Item 4 was a better discriminator with a sensitivity of 84.62% and a specificity of 67.37%. The AUC for the global scores decreased to 0.621 when applied to the aMCI and control groups (p = 0.002). After controlling for age and education, the gesture imitation test scores were positively correlated with the MMSE (r = 0.637, p < 0.001), the MoCA (r = 0.572, p < 0.001), and the CDT (r = 0.514, p < 0.001) and were negatively correlated with the CDR scores (r = -0.558, p < 0.001).Conclusions: The gesture imitation test is an easy, rapid tool for detecting ADD, and is suitable for the patients suspected of mild ADD and aMCI in outpatient clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims In order to confirm the utility of the voxel-based specific regional analysis system for Alzheimer's disease ( VSRAD) in assessing the atrophy of the entorhinal cortex, we investigated whether there were correlations between VSRAD and the scores of neuropsychological tests in the patients with Alzheimer's disease ( AD) and mild cognitive impairment. Methods Thirty patients, including 18 AD and 12 mild cognitive impairment patients, were included in this study. VSRAD was performed to assess the atrophy of the entorhinal cortex. The patients were carefully screened with the neuropsychological tests, including Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale- III ( WAIS-III), the Wechsler Memory Scale- Revised, the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Part ( ADAS-cog) and the revised version of Hasegawa's Dementia Scale. Results All patients showed atrophy with different degrees in the entorhinal cortex except one case. Z-scores had significant positive correlation with ADAS-cog, and negative correlation with Information subset of WAIS-III (respectively, P = 0.0129 and P = 0.0294). The revised version of Hasegawa's Dementia Scale and the Similarities subsets of the WAIS-III had a tendency of negatively correlating with Z-scores of VSRAD (respectively, P = 0.0532 and P = 0.0635). The Delayed Visual Reproduction subset of the Wechsler Memory Scale- Revised was also found to have a weak negative correlation with Z-scores ( P = 0.0609). Conclusions Z-scores of VSRAD were revealed to have a close relation with many neuropsychological tests, especially ADAS-cog and the Information subset of WAIS-III. The results meant that VSRAD was a useful indictor of early diagnosis of AD, closely correlating with the changes of cognitive functions and the progression of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]